Get to know eSports: Taking the competition online
Nov. 16—LAURINBURG — St. Andrews may be a small university by most specifications, but they are poised and ready to do big things.
The school's athletic department currently boasts eight men's and seven women's varsity teams and two coed varsity teams. One of its newest additions taking shape is the eSports program that launched in the fall of the 2020-2021 school year. It brings together gamers from all over to compete in select video games in a competitive format.
The legitimatizing of online competition is still a work in progress as it is not officially acknowledged by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) yet. But eSports Head Coach Kieran Kilcoyne sees that changing soon.
"I think it's one of those that's similar to cheer, where they have it in a sub-category. It's almost like an emerging sport. There are plans for them to create conferences, then group schools based on location and things like that. It's not currently adopted by them, but it's on their radar."
In the meantime, Kilcoyne and his coed squad will hone their skills battling for championships in two separate conferences — the National Association of Collegiate eSports (NACE) and the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The 23 players are split up into four "teams" based on which game they compete in. The Knights face off in Overwatch 2, Super Smash Bros., Ultimate, Rainbow Six Siege, and Fortnite.
An average weekly schedule consists of two matches per team, required practices, and scheduled scrimmages. Unlike other sports, the season runs concurrent to the academic calendar, running both semesters.
"We have our own facilities on campus," Kilcoyne said. "That's where we do our practices or compete. We can easily contact another school and say we have a practice block from seven to nine tonight. Do you guys want to jump in? Then we can do practices against them ... it ends up being lots of things against other colleges. But we can also break out and end up doing video review sessions from a film from the week before and the games that we played, in terms of what we did well, what we didn't do well, and what our goals can be for the week to improve. There (are) still lots of parallels with traditional sports. It can just be a little difficult for people to wrap their head around that we can do the same stuff that they can."
Kilcoyne's recruiting efforts know no offseason, as he is always keeping an eye out for potential recruits to bolster the Knights' program. He welcomes players who are open to "dropping the ego," looking to be part of a system, and will elevate the team culture outside of competition.
The approach has seen dividends, as the young program has seen respectable results. As of Nov. 13, the team has an 11-3 Overwatch 2 record, a 9-5 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate record, and is ranked 17th out of 61 competing schools in Fortnite.
With the growing success of the program, putting the necessary framework in place so competitors know they are supported beyond their game performance is at the forefront of Kilcoyne's agenda.
"That's a goal for this year, at least for me personally," Kilcoyne said. "To make sure we are providing the best experience as a whole to our players. We are supporting them in the classroom; we are supporting them on the team. We are supporting them in every aspect and making them feel that the team is working for them instead of just them working for the team."
