Many clubs at the Upper School don’t always maintain their loyal members throughout the school year, but the Esports club is still going strong. Gunnar Johnson ‘23, a leader of the club, notes that “most clubs here usually drop every member by February but we still have, like, around ten consistent members.” Esports club is a video-gaming club made up of multiple teams who each play their own game against other high school teams once a week.
Esports club works with the Minnesota Varsity League (MVL) which is an organization that hosts high schools from around Minnesota to play different video games, from sports games to gun games.
Club meetings aren’t typical in-person gatherings before or after school, rather, they are always online; the club holds online practices through MVL. Johnson adds, “A lot of the practices involve a lot of yelling, a little bit of screaming, and usually someone’s always complaining.” While the club seems mostly laid-back and low-commitment, they have occasional state-wide tournaments in which members who are qualified for a game get to go and compete at the Mall of America.
Last month, Johnson and David Carlson ‘23, another club leader, participated in the MVL state competition at the Mall of America hosted by Wisdom Gaming Studios. Johnson and Carlson qualified for the Rocket League bracket. The competition took place over the course of three days, from Jan. 13 to Jan. 15, and consisted of a group of 16 different teams who played against other high school teams in a standard tournament bracket.
Johnson elaborates, “It was pretty fun; we had a large turnout from all the schools and unfortunately we did lose the first round, but it was a fun atmosphere and it was pretty cool to play at the Mall of America.” Though their state competition experience was cut short, Carlson adds, “We were not trying to win, we just wanted to see what it was like. We found it very interesting because we got to talk to college teams and see how other schools with more developed teams operate with coaches and stuff like that.”
![Campbell is a student that writes by hand for all of his classes, and according to him, he “[finds] it easier to remember stuff if [he] writes it down.”](https://www.blakespectrum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG-0178-675x900.jpg)
