Mind Sports: Non-Traditional Sports at Jenks

By: Liam Ford

Jenks High School has long participated in traditional sports, such as Football, Basketball, Baseball,–you know, physical stuff. While these sports bring the student body together, give athletes opportunities for college scholarships and careers, and teach life skills such as fairness and equality. They have long been predominantly limited to physical activities, excluding students with interests outside of physical sports or those who lack the ability to compete in them.

Now, Jenks students and staff are actively working on the Jenks esports team. With the recently growing interest in new, non-physical sports at JHS–which have been dubbed “mind sports”– the Jenks esports team has found its origin under the leadership of Kyle Foster.

Esports is a non-traditional sport that focuses on the same level of competitiveness as traditional sports, that instead challenges students to work as a team and compete in computer video games.  Esports focuses on a variety of popular games, such as strategy games like League of Legends, card games including Hearthstone, and many first-person shooter games, which JHS is unlikely to compete in.  Esports games and tournaments are generally live streamed on websites like Youtube or Twitch.

“Last year,” said Foster, “a group of students approached Corey Hubble about starting an esports team at Jenks. They were passionate about gaming and they knew that if they started this then it would be an opportunity available to future students. It’s like that one saying: true love is planting a seed, knowing that you’ll never sit in its shadow.”

As of now, the Jenks esports team is in its early developmental stages and plans to take great strides towards competing. Currently, the team is preparing by gathering materials, team members, and planning to compete in future seasons.  But they don’t do this without facing many challenges:

“Hubble and I are building this from scratch, and all we have to go on is what other schools are telling us what they’ve done… Right now, we have five computers and 23 gaming chairs. Our chairs have kind of outnumbered our computers. But the five computers we have are amazing,” Foster added, “As a side hustle, I build computers. I love them.”

Teacher Corey Hubble entertaining himself in the Esports Arena

Although raising funds and gathering appliances is an obstacle to overcome, the Jenks esports team has had no problem gathering team members, including students who have stepped up to take a ‘leading role’ on the team. As of now, the Canvas course created to track future competing members has upwards of 120+ JHS students enrolled.

But not all of these students can play at a professional level yet. Foster also shares that he and his team would like to train new students, who do not even have a computer at home, and allow them to compete just as much, especially if gaming is their passion.

Jenks Students practicing gameplay at the Rewind Esports Facility

"I have always been a lover of passion," Foster said, "I love when students are passionate about things. That passion is infectious. It’s impalpable, and kind of radiates off of their being. When someone is passionate about something, it kind of causes you to be passionate about it as well."

And while esports, like traditional sports, is played to entertain and work as a team, there are also benefits offered to the most elite of players. It can bring academic and social engagement for students who previously did not have extra-curricular activities surrounding their interests and boost the overall student activity at Jenks. Additionally, colleges participating in esports have begun offering large scholarships to the best of players.

“There have been millions of dollars worth of scholarships out there for esports,” Foster said, “and that was one of the biggest selling points Hubble and I used to get the school involved. We said, “hey, there’s colleges out there that are willing to pay big bucks to kids on their esports team..’”

In 2022, 175 colleges are recorded to be enrolled in the National Association of Collegiate esports (NACE), in which these colleges have varsity gaming programs that are officially recognized by one another. The NACE also recorded that esports scholarships can grant anywhere between $500 and $8,000 a year, with some colleges such as Harrisburg University offering a full ride scholarship to their entire 16-player team.

College varsity esports teams are very similar to traditional sports teams, but also have some differences. Students will wear team jerseys and practice gameplay together all the same, but the requirements to do which are less firm.  NACE has reported that the average GPA requirement for varsity esports is only around a 2.5, but the Next College Student Athlete (NCSA) Organization also mentions that “esports scholarships are often partial and combined with academic scholarships, [and] good grades and test scores can help you get more assistance.”

With esports at Jenks, Students with differing passions are able to participate in extracurricular activities, have team building experiences, further their social skills, add to their academic records and even secure a future with college scholarships, careers and share the experience the whole way through.

2021 Jenks Esports Team.

Interested in esports? Learn more about esports here, view the NCSA information on college scholarships here, or contact Kyle Foster at Jenks High School for additional information and recruitment!

Photo credits and additional information: Jenksesports on Instagram!