Featured photo by MTSU Esports
Story by Stephanie Hall
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Inside the Business and Aerospace Building computer lab is the Esports gaming room. On a typical day, multiple people are in there playing video games such as Minecraft or Super Smash Bros. Many of those people are a part of the Esports club on campus.
Esports is competitive video gaming. Many multiplayer games have large esports competitions, Overwatch and League of Legends being some of the most popular.
Middle Tennessee State University has its very own Esports club, with many competitive teams. There are teams for Valorant, Splatoon, Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, League of Legends and Super Smash Brothers. For some of the more popular games like Valorant, the club has multiple teams.
They aren’t like most clubs on campus, who meet semi-regularly. Instead, the club only meets at events and interest meetings, with individual teams meeting weekly. Members of different teams meet up in the BAS Gaming Lab for casual competitions.
“Players can either game competitively or just come into our Esports lab and just play whatever game they want,” said Lauren Turnage, Secretary for MTSU Esports and Manager for Valorant team. They’ll just have to get it checked, sometimes we need admin to come in and type in the password to download it. You can just play games.”
Some members are on official teams, while others are more casual, just wanting to play their favorite video games. Either way, the esports club is open to anyone.
“We are just a club of people who like to play games. It’s welcoming to whoever wants to play, competitively or casually,” said Turnage.
The club got its start in 2017, though they only focused on League of Legends. However, during the pandemic, they expanded to more multi-player games. As they have grown, they have been able to attend gaming tournaments such as Belong Gaming Arena events, Volan at University of Tennessee in Knoxville and ETSU Con at East Tennessee State University.
President of MTSU Esports, Trey White, has attended Belong gaming tournaments in Franklin, Tennessee, twice and Volan at UTK.
“In online competitions, I’ve faced off against many of the top teams from collegiate Valorant and through results and performances, been scouted by scholarship programs across the country as both a player and a coach,” said White.
For many members of the club, they enjoy spending time in the gaming lab and getting to connect with other players.
“I just joined the Esports club because I enjoy playing video games and it was just such a welcoming and friendly environment. I met a lot of my first friends though the esports club in the gaming lab and I’m still friends with them today,” said Max Kravitz, Vice President of the Esports club.
MTSU Esports teams have plans to compete in Volan and ETSU Con in March and have hopes to win. They have an active Discord with over 1,000 members and an active Instagram.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell and Assistant Lifestyles Editor Shamani Salahuddin, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Instagram at MTSUSidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
