FORT SMITH, Ark — The popularity of a new extracurricular activity for high school students has reached our area and is still expanding. PlayVs is an amateur eSports platform aimed at bringing the sport to high schools throughout the country. In September, PlayVs renewed its partnership with the Arkansas Activities Association, continuing to make it a registered sport for schools in Arkansas.
At Northside High School in Fort Smith, April Coats is the Principles of IT teacher. She's headed the eSports program since 2019 and since then, the program has grown from 5 to over 50 students.
“It just brings them that sense of belonging,” Coats said. “It kind of brings a very diverse little group of people together all for one common goal."
Northside competes in numerous state and regional competitions throughout the school year. They will be one of the many schools competing at the Rewired Festival in Fayetteville. They are bringing 10 members to compete with 130 high schoolers in a Super Smash Bros. competition. The winner will take home the title and a cash prize to support eSports in schools.
Diego Sanabria, a junior at Northside, joined the team this year. He has never competed in a video game competition like this before.
“I got new friends, learned how to talk more and how to play since they taught me,” Sanabria said. “Kicking their butt, and then them kicking my butt, and then just repeat over and over— it’s just the competition that makes it more fun."
ESports are said to require critical thinking and communication skills that students may not get when participating in other sports. In some cases, students can even letter or earn scholarships for college.
"Most of the colleges in Arkansas have an eSports program, and they are offering scholarships for eSports players. It's a route for some of those kids that maybe scholarships aren't going to pan out for them. But this is a way they can get some scholarship money to help fuel that college dream," Coats said.
Head eSports Coach for Northside Kenneth Edmonson said this requires just as much practice as a traditional sport.
“A lot of these games require a lot of strategy, a lot of thinking, and a lot of complex plans of what to do overall in the game to get the best result," Edmonson said. "We have them playing these games several times a day. When we are in our practice modes they'll be after school for sure. Two days a week, one day for our matches and one day for our practices."
Edmonson said since eSports is under the Arkansas Activities Association, they're treated like real athletes who can't play unless they have the grades.
“It allows for us to really motivate kids to stay on a good track academically because we had the same requirements as any other athletics," Edmonson said.
"I just love watching the kids just have a good time," Edmonson said.
"The kids just loved being able to see what the level of competition that they wanted to get to was. That's also why I'm hoping for some of these younger players to say, 'That's where I want to be at', and they can start really motivating themselves to get there."