Four years ago, Cleveland State’s Esports program was formed and had about 20 athletes competing in five games. Now, esports has grown to about 45 individuals in the varsity program and over 100 people in the club portion.
With the growth at CSU (and worldwide) of esports, the HoriZone Roundtable spoke with the Director of Esports at Cleveland State, PJ Farrell, to get the rundown on the ins and outs.
Ready Player One?
CSU’s program was initially a part of the athletic department and competed in five different games: VALORANT, Overwatch, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and League of Legends.
With numerous students who play each game, one might wonder how they practice for events.
“Our Smash Ultimate team will go to local events a couple days a week. There’s an event in Brunswick every Tuesday that happens for Smash Ultimate [where] a lot of professional players go.”
Each game has other people helping coach (some are even just the students), but VALORANT had some extra help recently.
“For our VALORANT team, they have not had a coach traditionally, but we did hire somebody from a Tier-2 organization that came and watched us online and we gave them a little bit of a fee for just helping us last month or so.”
Overall, there are a lot of ways they prepare but each game has unique challenges. “We kind of prepare them for the tournaments but most of the time they just “scrim” [scrimmage] online. They find scrims online against other schools who are Tier-2 organizations that are also trying to make it professionally.”
Level Up
With the growing interest around campus and the growing community around the world, Farrell expanded the game lineup this year.
“We have a lot of people on campus that are really interested in what we’re trying to do. We added another game this year. We added Street Fighter: 6. [It’s a] traditional fighter game and I know there’s a lot of interest in the community for that as well and a lot of the colleges are starting to pick up on it.”
The program has continued to expand not just in size and games, but also in talent. Better talents contributed heavily to the accolades CSU has started to gather.
“I think last year was probably our best recruiting year we’ve ever had. We brought in three freshmen for our VALORANT team[.] We also brought in a couple really good Smash Ultimate players last year and then this year was the year that we knew it was like the beginning of our window because those kids now have a year’s experience under their belt.”
With younger players, as in any sport, the actual events can have added pressure as opposed to practices. “When you get to be in person and you get to be on stage and people are going crazy, for new people that are young, sometimes that can be very shocking so I think this year they had that experience. We tried to take them to some different trips so they could kind of get the jitters out and they came to play this year.”
“GG” (Good Game)
Not only is esports growing on campus, they’re also winning outside campus. CSU competes in the Great Lakes Esports Conference (GLEC) which includes teams from Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio. Farrell noted that Cleveland State is the only D-I school in the conference.
“What we find is that a lot of the D-II, D-III schools are the ones that are putting more money into esports programs, so the smaller[,] lower conferences are actually some of the better ones that are out there.”
Competing last year, CSU pulled out a great win against a powerhouse in Smash Ultimate. “Last year was our first year taking it to Manchester [University]. They were our big rivals in the Smash community and so we ended up beating them in a really close set for our very first conference win last year.”
This season saw CSU repeat as Manchester was knocked out in an earlier round. “[Manchester] lost to Illinois Wesleyan [University] and then we competed against Illinois Wesleyan, and we won 3-0 against them in the grand finals.”
In VALORANT, CSU also took down Tiffin University and got a bid in Texas at the CECC Nationals. “That was a big win for us. We were 0-5 against them the last few years. Their team was just really, really good.”
Each semester the GLEC selects three games to compete in, and CSU won two out of the three. “We are one of the first teams in the conference to win multiple game titles in the same season, so that was pretty cool for us.”
“Both teams really were dead set on trying to win the conference and take down these kinda juggernaut teams that have won the last few years, and so this was kind of their moment. This was their year for it.”
Continue?
With an established footprint at CSU, the future for esports is bright. They are connected to the Washkewicz College of Engineering and no longer with the athletic department.
Moving forward, Farrell wants to get even more of the campus involved. “I would love for people to know how they can get involved because we are like a mini athletic department within ourselves.”
“It would be really great if we had people on campus that could help us by just joining our club program or they can add by helping coach, running our website or our social media, or just participating and trying out for our varsity program.”
In the short term, Farrell wants to expand not just the number of people involved but also the space they have. He wants this larger space to contribute not only to the varsity program but the fun club experience. “You don’t have to play varsity. You can just have fun and just enjoy video games.”
In short, check out the program. It’s got plenty for everyone. “We would love for more people on campus just to recognize what we bring to the university itself and that there’s just so many different ways to get involved in how it can help you in your careers.”
Originally published by the HoriZone Roundtable. Republished here with permission.