As of Feb. 7, the John Brown University Esports club has over 140 Discord members. Located in campus facilities, the JBU Esports club competes with other schools in tournaments hosted every single night of the week. Starting next semester, a varsity Esports team will officially start and some students will qualify for scholarships based on videogames skills. The process of getting a club to this level took several years. Esports faculty advisor Kim Johnson disclosed this journey in an interview.
Before the esports club was founded, it all began with students from the Engineering Department playing League of Legends together on campus. It started small, but after a while it grew enough that a group of students and faculty members—including Lee Schrader and Carter Henson—wanted to create an official club. In the spring of 2020, Johnson and a few other faculty members organized two tournaments to gauge the interest levels of the campus towards videogames. The games selected were League of Legends and Rocket League. Both the tournaments happened before students went home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournaments had a moderate turnout and after lots of paperwork, the Esports club was officially approved in March 2021.
After a year of officially being a club and having a space set aside for the students to play, the JBU Esports club officially joined The National Association of Collegiate Esports. At that time, JBU started competing with one Rocket League and one League of Legends team.
By fall 2022, the club officially added three games: Chess, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and Overwatch 2. These were not the only changes made in the Esports club. They also started competing with The National Esports Collegiate Conference. This allowed them to start a rotation of the games they are playing. As it stands, the teams play competitively every night of the week. Mondays are Rocket League and Valorant, added recently in spring 2023. On Tuesday nights, the Overwatch 2 team plays. Wednesdays, League of Legends team plays; Thursdays, the Smash Ultimate teams play; Fridays, Smash Ultimate singles competes and Saturday is when the competitive chess team plays.
Looking to the future, the the athletic department is overseeing a revamp of the Bynum Theater to support regularly hosting Esports tournaments. As previously mentioned, there will be a varsity section of the Esports club starting next fall. The varsity team will be part of the athletic department. The Esports club welcomes new members and by no means is a member required to play competitively. If interested in club level play or varsity, contact Kim Johnson at KiJohnson@jbu.edu.
Photo courtesy of JBU Marketing and Communication