Esports growing in popularity at Illinois high schools and colleges

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Esports has not been around as long as NCAA basketball but it's becoming just as popular on some college and high school campuses.

In a FOX 32 special report, we take a closer look at this fast-growing after-school activity.

When classes are done for the day at Naperville North High School, many students head outside to play their favorite sport.

Right now, that's anything from baseball to tennis to lacrosse.

Even though it's spring, there are dozens of other students playing another favorite sport—still inside the school.

Esports is also known as competitive video gaming.

"Our varsity and JV teams are not your traditional things you would find perhaps outside in other sports and events at a high school," said Chris Terpstra. "I have several freshmen on varsity teams and I have several juniors and seniors that might be on the JV team."

Terpstra is the general manager for Naperville North's esports team.

When he's not managing his 80-student roster in the ten different titles they compete in, he's working in the school's special education department.

"Everything within esports has a great way of breaking down a lot of the barriers that society has put up for us," he said. "I think what esports does is allow us to reach out to the students that maybe wouldn’t have an outlet for perhaps their interests. Not everybody is going to go out and compete on an athletic field."

While Luke Bourgeois was already involved in other school activities when he joined esports last year, he says this one made him feel the most comfortable.

"I’ve never had a club where I could nerd out with my friends as much as this," Bourgeois said. "I just feel like I belong here."

This year, the sophomore is on the varsity Super Smash Brothers and Rocket League teams, and he's captain of the varsity Pokémon Unite team.

He says his parents weren’t very optimistic about him playing esports at first, and then they saw how much success he and his teammates were having.

"At state, they obviously have some college scouts and at this most recent Smash Bros tournament I was talked to by a coach from Syracuse and from Michigan State," Bourgeois said.

"There’s 20 colleges on the table, but it’s been narrowed down to some of them and the big offer is one of them," said Hinsdale Central senior David Collins.

That's how many colleges are trying to recruit Collins to play on their esports teams.

"He is our first to get a scholarship for doing this. He’s the first one to pursue it in college," said Sam Norris.

Norris is the head of esports at Hinsdale Central High School.

"We’re not the biggest program, but we have our niche. We found it and we really enjoy playing Super Smash Brothers," he said.

Playing that zone has paid off for them, and they've got the hardware to prove it.

Norris says his players are also developing other valuable skills, just as they would playing any other sport, like communication and flexibility.

"A lot of it is the yelling but it is cool to see when they end up strategizing at the tournaments," Norris said.

"I know for me, personally, I’ve gotten so much out of it and I’ve grown so much as a person through the time and energy that I’ve put into my team and into this program," said DePaul University senior Kylee Walters.

Walters is one of the 250 students who competes on DePaul’s esports team. She's a player, a team captain and what's also called a "Streaming Demon."

"I know it would be an absolute dream to work somewhere in the gaming and technology industry," Walters said.

"We just recently expanded this space. We doubled in size because we were hitting a hundred-plus students coming into the gaming center per day because students want to be here," said Jeffery Fricke-Waters.

Fricke-Waters is the esports coordinator for DePaul.

"Community is at the core of what we do. I have seen so many times students walking in and they know nobody. They really just like playing Fortnite. They walk in to the gaming center and they walk out with their best friends," he said.

With numbers like that, Fricke-Waters says esports is DePaul’s largest student program.

"We have the most engagement. We have the most students that are coming in having that touch point with the university," said Fricke-Waters.

He says students who pass through are majoring in several different subjects, not just computers, and that there are different job opportunities to pursue in esports after school.

"Helping to manage teams or you’re doing design work for them, or HR. They are just as much of a company as Verizon," Fricke-Waters said.

"The gaming industry is bigger than movies and music combined. It’s just what kids are doing and seeing now. It’s how they interact with each other. It’s how they interact with the world a lot of the times," said Ben Bruce.

Bruce is the chair of the IHSEA, the Illinois High School Esports Association.

Similar to the IHSA, this organization runs full-length seasons for all of the popular video games students are competing in along with a few tournaments—like one called the Midwest Battleground, where high school and college teams from multiple states competed in February.

"We have 120 high schools and over four thousand students competed with us in the last year. We see it continuing to grow," Bruce said.

According to Statista.com, an online market research database, esports revenue in the U.S. is projected to reach $1.2 billion this year.

"We've been gathering data on clubs and organizations inside the high school space," said Bubba Gaedert.

Gaedert is a senior lecturer at the College of Esports in London and the president of the Video Games and Esports Foundation here in the U.S.

He says studies have shown students involved in esports improve academically.

"So the numbers we have right now as attendance goes up by 10%, which is a big deal. That's a big number in the education system to have a percentage to go up throughout the school year, as well as a GPA increase of about 1.4," Gaedert said.

Just like other athletes, many schools require esports teams to keep up their grades and attendance if they want to compete.

With the surge in esports showing no signs of stopping, DePaul's Streaming Demons may soon be just as popular as its Screaming Blue Demon basketball team.

"I think we are right on the edge to really overpass where some of our athletics are," Fricke-Waters said.

Both of the high school teams we interviewed practice once a week in person for about two hours and have a few other sessions online.

You also had to try out for these teams and yes, they have playbooks and game tapes to study just like other sports teams.

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