A Different Kind of High School Sport

In our area, sports and high schools have forever been linked. From the early twentieth century to the current scene, schools like Poly and Wilson and later, Millikan and Lakewood, have groomed many a successful Olympic and professional athlete. From football to water polo, baseball to beach volleyball, athletes from Long Beach and environs have often paved the way, with major schools engaging in decades of healthy competition.

Now comes a fledgling sport that’s attempting entry into this tradition. E-sports, more or less the next logical step from the early days of gaming, kids on consoles hooked up to their TV attempting to best their friends with the highest score. Now that e-sports are on the internet, there’s a healthy universe of worldwide competition as easy to find as the next online screen.

That’s where Millikan senior 18-year-old Drew Helms comes in. “I was in class at the end of the year, a friend at a Whittier high school messaged me, about something called the High School E-sports League (HSEL),” a Kansas City-based organization that hooks up competitive gamers and acts as a recruiting pipeline for college e-sports programs. “He told me it was a way for students to earn scholarships.”

Begun by two friends at the University of Missouri, it began recruiting schools in 2013, starting out with 20 high schools. Currently, HSEL has 1,400 schools on board, mostly in the continental United States according to the latest membership map posted on its website (https://www.highschoolesportsleague.com/). Only Millikan and Lakewood High field teams in the area, but there are a few in Orange County and the South Bay.

To get a club like this started at Millikan, Helms had to fill out the required paperwork. “I had a meeting with the activities director,” who approved the request. “I talked to my physics teacher in my junior year and he became our advisor. He knows about games.”

Helms got word out online. “The signup at the first meeting on Sept. 18 was 30, which shocked everyone.” There are now 80 people at the club, most of whom are male.

“For our first two club meetings, we had presentations planned out to introduce the club to people as well as show them what the HSEL is. We went into depth about the league and how their tournaments are run throughout the year and how students can earn scholarships toward college tuition. The second one detailed our club specifically and what we aimed to provide students with. These included our hope for jerseys and the broadcasting of our matches on the social media platform Twitch.tv.”

“We have seven teams,” said Helms, who is the president of the club. “We let people sign up for any team they like.” HSEL offers tournaments in 14 titles, five of which are considered “majors.” Rocket League, which Helms described as “soccer with cars” is the game in which Millikan is most competitive. “In Rocket League, 92 schools competed in this most recent season called the Fall Major.” Of 23 teams, Millikan E-Sports: Rams was number one.

David Cropp, 25, a mechanical integrity engineer and experienced gamer described Rocket League “like turbo speed soccer with cars.” Though Cropp never participated in HSEL while at Poly and UCLA, “I’ve gone to one or two tournaments, it’s exploded in the last five years.”

According to Helms, “274 schools signed up” for the December tournament. We are the number one seed in the west against the number one seed in east coast, Ridgewood High School in New Jersey.” However, after winning a weekend semi-final, the Millikan team lost the final match to Ridgewood High on Dec. 16.

Though it sounds like a lofty goal, Helms would like e-sports to become a Millikan team sport, at the same level as the traditional skein of teams, holding tournaments at a school site and live streaming games at the auditorium, similar to the games recently held at the prestigious Barclay Center in Brooklyn. Then there are schools, such as Boise State, which offer scholarships to accomplished gamers. So the future as a major sport might not be unrealistic.

Cropp has his doubts about it becoming a team sport. “For the high school, level, I place e-sports with other competitive games like chess. The barrier is the older generation may not care enough to support it and their support is needed.”

Millikan, according to Helms, “has been fairly supportive and the teachers specifically were the most excited.”

Cropp does not doubt the value of e-sports. “College is so competitive that if students have anything that help distinguish them, it’s good to expand what’s considered to be valuable. Different games bring out different traits. It makes school more interesting. On  the whole it would be a net benefit.”

steve@beachcomber.news