Bethel University gamers on 'pioneering edge,' bring esports to collegiate competition

Cameron Napier is a two-sport athlete at Mishawaka’s Bethel University.

The freshman is a member of the soccer team and he’s also on the school’s esports team, for which he plays a game called Rocket League. There’s a connection between the on-field and off-field sports he participates in.

“Rocket League is basically soccer but with cars ... with the same objective of trying to score on the opponent,” he said.

A recent competition took place at Bendix Arena, the venue in South Bend’s Century Center that has been transformed into an esports spot, and it pitted the Bethel’s Rocket League team against a team from Mount Union College.

On this snowy Monday night, the opponents were far away in Alliance, Ohio, and the inclement weather prevented one member of Bethel’s team from reaching the area. That person had to play remotely.

The game features cars with giant wheels doing acrobatic, gravity defying moves while trying to maneuver a giant soccer ball into the opponent’s goal. The contests require a great deal of communication between teammates.

In that way, it is similar to the kind of strategy that Napier uses when he plays soccer.

“We communicate directly through a microphone and everything,” said Mason Fish, a junior at Bethel and one of Napier’s Rocket League teammates.

Napier said the concentration required in esports is another similarity these games share with soccer.

“Soccer is a little more physical, but esports is kind of similar because I have to mentally prepare for each game knowing that I have to perform if I want to succeed,” he said.

The 17 players who are on Bethel’s three esports teams are at the cutting edge of a sports revolution, according to their coach Daniel Wort. In addition to Rocket League, Bethel also has a team that plays “Overwatch,” which is a six-on-six first-person shooter game and Smash Brothers, a fighting game that features characters from Mario Brothers.

At 52, Wort is the same age of many of his players’ parents and he is amazed at the evolution and growth of video games since he fed quarters into arcade games in the 1980s.

“We went down to the local arcade and threw in our quarter and played Pac Man and Asteroid and Galaga, remember that,” Wort said.

Now, multiple players can compete against each other on gaming systems from remote locations, thanks to computer technology and the internet. Competitive gaming has become a billion dollar industry with players competing at the high school, collegiate and professional levels.

But esports are so new — Robert Morris College in Chicago became the first college to field a varsity esports team — that many people aren’t familiar with them.

“I had to tell my grandma what esports was,” Fish said. “My mom would (put posts) on Facebook and everyone in the comment section is like, ‘What is esports?’”

Wort believes that will change as the program recruits more athletes and as the local esports scene gains more exposure as Bendix Arena draws more gamers to competitions and tournaments. Wort noted that Bendix Arena gives a program like the one at Bethel several advantages. It has high-end equipment and high internet speeds that most students do not have in their homes.

Imanol Chavez, a freshman, said that he likes the feel of competing in the venue.

“Playing here is more of like a game-like setting,” Chavez said. “At home is more comfortable, but here it feels likes more of a competitive scene. And here it’s easier for all of us to be here at one time rather than at home when maybe we’re all separate or only two of us can watch the screen at the same time.”

So like college football and basketball programs, Bethel’s esports team views state-of-the-art facilities as a draw for new recruits. And Wort said that the recruiting is an important part of Bethel’s esports program just like it is for the other scholarship sports. Fish, who has been gaming since he was a child and has been following the esports revolution for several years, jumped at the opportunity after the school announced its intention to start a program.

Wort said that as the program develops, he sometimes finds some recruits through his connections with high school esports associations throughout the Midwest. Mostly, though, he depends on recommendations from current team members.

“These kids play each other online so if they make a connection they will tell me,” he said. “I just signed three top-level players and it all started with a connection they made with one of my players.”

Wort knows that people may have preconceived notions about the type of people who would be on an esports team. He said those notions are wrong. The team has men and women players. Some players, like Fish major in STEM fields, while others, such as freshman Reylyn Yoder, a member of the Overwatch team, is a youth ministry major.

All of them believe that they are on the ground floor of something big.

“It’s very cool,” Yoder said. “I’m a freshman and I am going to be able to be on the team for the next four years and help new people come in and be on the pioneering edge.”