The Esports team, led and organized by Scott Dunn, a Construction Skills teacher, and Hannah Martin a science teacher, both from Nixa High School, is rapidly expanding and creating new student opportunities. With new equipment and an almost perfect winning streak, the team has created a community of gamers that fosters teamwork and strategy from scratch.
In the Esports meeting room, the team acquired new computers and equipment costing $3,000 per station, and $17,000 overall. These upgrades will allow for a boosted competitive experience and new chances to improve.
“With the new computers, we have an updated GPU, so we have 4070 supers in there, which is a lot better than our old graphics cards,” Martin said. “So because of that, we have better frame rate, better refresh rates on our monitors, and our computers can handle better graphics. So it’s better for us to like when it comes to like FPS games like the more you see, the faster you see it, the better your reactions are going to be.”
The team began around four years ago in Dunn’s room as a simple club, but with the creation of the Missouri Scholastic Esports Federation (MOSEF), the club became a competitive sport. The upgraded computers and the chance to win scholarships has drawn attention to the team.
“Last year, we had two [students] get scholarships to colleges, and we’ve already had scouts and stuff come down from Drury,” Martin said. “We’re going to [Missouri State University] and [Ozark Technical Community College] to talk about scholarship opportunities and things like that for my current players so that they’ll be able to go to college and continue their Esports career.”
Although this could be a big opportunity, getting these scholarships is not always easy. The team must move up in competitive levels and consistently win games for students to have the chance to win Esports scholarships.
“[We] play five games, and it’s three out of five,” freshman Bennett Lyons said. “If we win the circuit, we go to districts, and then state and then nationals.”
Martin said there are individual rankings for online competitors in some of the games the team plays, such as Overwatch and Valorant.
“So with most video games right now, you have competitive as a mode that you can play,” Martin said. “… Competitive is where you actually start climbing the ranks.”
Aside from trying to win high school matches, Esports members also strive to improve their rankings within the games themselves.
“You have [bronze], silver, gold, platinum, diamond and then masters, and then top 500 is in that as well,” Martin said.
About three members of the varsity team are ranked as masters, with the potential to rise even further in the ranks.
“They’re getting very, very close to becoming the top 500 of the region if they continue grinding and getting better and improving every single time,” Martin said. “I think they’ll get there eventually, but on top of that, a lot of our other [Esports] members are like diamond and platinum, which [the] average, for a typical person, would be gold.”
