Bethel’s Es­ports Team Plans are Com­ing To­gether

MISHAWAKA – Bethel’s Es­ports di­rec­tor re­cently dis­trib­uted a wealth of in­for­ma­tion to in­ter­ested stu­dents con­cern­ing the time­line for the de­vel­op­ment of the fledg­ling team. 

Daniel Wort is the new di­rec­tor of Es­ports for Bethel. The Es­ports team is go­ing to be es­tab­lished in the fall of 2020 and it will have three dis­tinct di­vi­sions: an Over­watch team, a League of Leg­ends team, and a Rocket League team, pro­vided each game gets enough play­ers. 

Bethel also hired two as­sis­tant coaches: Jafet Moya, a Bethel alum­nus and an ex­pe­ri­enced League of Leg­ends player; and Steve Robin­son, the di­rec­tor of Es­ports for Elkhart High School’s Elkhart Elite. 

Di­rec­tor Wort has met with the Cen­tury Cen­ter and has learned that the build­ing’s Ben­dix Arena is, so far, still on sched­ule for its mid-July open­ing. The Es­ports team has arranged for its mem­bers to have ex­clu­sive ac­cess to the fa­cil­i­ties at cer­tain times. 

Ad­di­tion­ally, sched­ul­ing op­tions and league par­tic­i­pants have been ex­am­ined and, de­pend­ing on the game, play­ers will be able to com­pete with other teams across the coun­try. These games are in­tended to be live-streamed with broad­cast­ers and an­a­lysts from Bethel’s stu­dent body. 

Some of the cur­rent plans for try­outs have also been an­nounced; they are to take place in June at an as-yet-un­spec­i­fied high school and the at­tend­ing play­ers are go­ing to be com­pet­ing as teams. All the nec­es­sary equip­ment will be pro­vided, but if there are any spe­cific pe­riph­er­als or other types of gear that play­ers use they are en­cour­aged to bring them. 

There are also a few up­com­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for play­ers to get a lit­tle Es­ports ex­pe­ri­ence; at Pwr Up Con, a gam­ing con­ven­tion tak­ing place this July, some play­ers might have the pos­si­bil­ity of scrim­mag­ing with De­Paul Uni­ver­si­ty’s Es­ports team. An­other op­por­tu­nity for any of Bethel’s gamers is a po­ten­tial Es­ports sum­mer camp for lo­cal youths from July 20 to July 23. 

Due to the novel na­ture of the team, Wort is en­cour­ag­ing any in­ter­ested stu­dents to con­tact him. 

 “If you know of other stu­dents on cam­pus, or in­com­ing fresh­men, who might be in­ter­ested in the pro­gram, please reach out to them,” Wort said.  

In­ter­ested Pi­lots don’t even need to in­tend to play pro­fes­sion­ally since, though the Es­ports team proper will con­sist of pro­fes­sion­ally minded play­ers, there is also a pos­si­bil­ity for a more ca­sual Es­ports Club team for peo­ple just look­ing to have fun gam­ing to­gether.