Edmond Esports

In episode 228, we talk with Edmond Memorial High School Esports Coach Kate Swearingen about the teams playing against others across the state. You can find their games on Twitch. Transcript: og228 Michael: Greetings and salutations my fellow geeks and welcome to episode 228 of the Okie Geek Podcast brought to you by Okie Comics I'm Michael Cross. Students at Edmond Memorial high school are enjoying the ever-growing community of e-sports. Their coach is chemistry teacher, Kate Swearingen and she joins us now, Kate, welcome to the show. Kate: Hi, it's so great to be here. Michael: So just tell me first off e-sports at Edmond Memorial High. What's going on with that? Kate: Yeah, so we have a great program. We run three different games. We have Rocket League, League of Legends and Smash Brothers. A ton of kids are involved. So it ranges because we have a club and a class we have about 30 plus kids in the class, and then we have just extra kids in the club, but we're hoping to even grow more next year. But yeah, it's, it's really exciting stuff. Michael: What made you decide to start this thing? Kate: So I've always had a passion for making sure that kids have a space that they feel like they belong. And I used to work at a middle school where I started an animate club and I would DM, Dungeons and Dragons as well. For a group of kids there. And then when I moved to the high school, I knew I wanted to coach e-sports because I played a MOBA at that time called heroes of the storm, which isn't really around anymore. But then, well it's around, but it's just not the same as it used to be. But then a kid approached me cause I kind of let them know, you know, Hey, like I like this based on like this to a kid approached me. He's like, I really want to start a League of Legends team. And I knew about League of Legends because in the same genre that I played so I was like, yeah, this would be great. You know, like some of my stuff will transfer over. So it kind of took him the rest of the year to get the club going. And then last year we had our first team League of Legends team. And then this year we have it as an actual class. So we have even more e-sports now than we did last year. Cause each of each of the own games are their own e-sports so, Michael: , And there's a community like a whole competition going on. Correct. Kate: Right. , we participate in two different tournaments right now. We're a part of OBSL which is the whole global e-sports league. And there are several high schools in Oklahoma that participate in that one. And that's our state tournament. And our playoffs will be April 3rd, but we're, we're sort of finishing up the regular season. We have just a couple more games of that to go. And then we're a part of a nationwide tournament. That's called play BS. So we, we play in that as well. And those, those real games, we have pre-season games right now, but we're starting our real games for that. At the beginning of March. Michael: That's amazing. And so how are you guys doing so far? Kate: We're doing really, really well. We haven't started our real play yes games but for our ESL games right now, we're undefeated. So in all of our sports, Michael: That's amazing. , Who else is in this league, The major players that you would know would be maybe union or broken arrow, Jenks Okay, C grant and then there are some smaller schools too. Like we played Stillwell, not, Stillwater Stillwell, and then we were supposed to Salina today, but that got moved around. And so, yeah, there's, there's just a whole range of schools, depending on which e-sport, it is some S some of these sports are a little bit cheaper to get into than others. Kate: So they're a little bit more accessible. Michael: Right. Do you travel to these places too? Or do they come to you or do you just do it all online? Kate: Yeah, this year, we're all in line. Because it's, you know, it's, it's better that way for us this year. So they, they, we do play from a central location. We get together and they get together, but the matches played online. And when we, we played together, we're sitting apart from each other. And there, the replay vs games, we all played from home for those games because that's how play the us is structured this year. But for Oso, we tried to play it together. It's just, it helps the integrity of that match a little bit more. So has the COVID 19 impacted the, the games or, or the tournament's in any way? Yeah, it's made it a lot more difficult for some of the schools to get teams together. Just because. Schools in general are, have put so much energy into kind of the remote learning slash you know, trying to figure out AB schedule or whatever they're doing this year that a lot of coaches or teachers don't even have the ability to branch out into these kinds of things. So we had some schools that had dropped from ESL this year. Just because they didn't have the bandwidth, so to speak to really get in on that. Michael: Yeah. It's right now, schools are eating up a lot of bandwidth with their, at home education, with our distance learning. Right. So how do you, how do you move forward then if you're not having as much competition, does that, does that hurt with what you guys are trying to do? Kate: Yeah, it's, it's definitely caused, I mean, it's the kids that have really suffered this year as far as that's concerned, but that's why we became part of this year is so that we could have those extra games that we weren't getting out of ESL this particular year. And that, I think that's going to fill that and the other good news about play the us is that for ESL, I can only field one team, but we're pretty big school. So we have three league teams. We can have up to four rocket league teams of everybody's there. And then we can have like four or five smash teams. So I have a chance for my JV teams to really play. And that's what I want. I want each kid to have that chance, you know, like these kids, a lot of them. This is their thing. And so it's their chance to do that. And I really want them to have that opportunity. Michael: Yeah. I'm kind of jealous. I wish this was around when I was in high school. What would that, what does that mean to you to have something like this for these kids? Oh Kate: my gosh. It's so fantastic. I, I feel like I'm making so much more of a difference than, I mean, I make a difference as a pre AP chemistry teacher, and I understand that, but But to be able to be there for kids that don't necessarily have another spot. And aren't going to shine in all the same ways that my pre AP chemistry kids and some, some of them are the same kids to be there, but this allows them to have, I have that space, you know, and that, that means so much to me because I had, I had my spaces as a kid. I was in band and orchestra and I did all these things and that's really what. Helped me in school. I think the most I was in, I was at all pre AP or AP classes or whatever, too, but it was having that friend group and those extracurricular activities that really made the huge difference for me personally. And that's what I want for these kids. Michael: Right. And everybody talks about extracurriculars. And usually when they talk about extracurriculars or talking sports Ray, well, regular sports, football, baseball, basketball, but for some of these kids, that's just not something that they're into or that they really care about. Kate: Yeah. And from my kids, you know, this gives them that connection to the school culture. They really feel like they're winning for the school. And I have kids that would be failing if they, if they weren't some e-sports, they, the only reason some of them do their work is so that they can play on the team and to have that connection to the school is just huge. And the teachers feel that way too. The Eddie Memorial teachers are just fantastic. They have really jumped in on this and they've they're very encouraging to the kids as well. It's, it's fantastic to see if they'll talk to the kids about it, even if they don't quite understand everything, they really they're really trying. It's so it's so great to see what was Michael: the administration like when you first went to them and said, Hey, I want to start an e-sports...