From air steers to power ups and car skins to shoutcasters, UAM Esports brought a new team and lots of new lingo to the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) during the 2023-2024 academic year. As the team enters their second season, they are currently recruiting student-athletes and still have scholarships available.
UAM Esports, formed in 2023, got off to a fast start, making it to the national semifinals in their first season of collegiate competition.
Bryan Fendley, director of UAM Esports, said that he and UAM Esports Coach Devin Burton began recruiting students during the summer of 2023, but the program had been in the making for several years. “We noticed that many high schools in Arkansas had esports teams, and we were looking to create an opportunity for those students to attend UAM and continue their interest with esports,” Fendley said.
Esports, short for electronic sports, are organized video game competitions. The creation of UAM’s team is part of a nationwide trend of colleges and universities joining the esports arena. The National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) was formed in 2016. According to NACE, at that time, there were only seven colleges in the United States with varsity esports teams, but esports were already thriving on the professional level. A year earlier, ESPN The Magazine released its first-ever issue dedicated to esports. In the issue, it cited that the 2014 League of Legends championship drew an online viewership of 27 million people. In comparison, that same year, the NBA Finals pulled in 15.5 million viewers. Since the formation of NACE, the growth has been rapid, and today, the association facilitates matches between almost 800 colleges and universities and over 18,000 student-athletes between the varsity tier and open tier.
Several universities have spent millions of dollars building esports arenas. UAM Esports is off to a more modest start, with computers in a gaming lab available for players to train on, but that has not stopped the team from excelling in NACE. The association offers 15 titles, or video games, for teams to compete in. During their first season, UAM student-athletes focused their training on one varsity title: Rocket League.
To imagine the gameplay in Rocket League, picture a futuristic soccer stadium where teams compete 3-on-3, except instead of six players on the field, six flying cars race around the stadium with the objective of bouncing a massive ball into the opposing team’s goal. The game requires precise coordination between teammates’ uniquely designed cars to outmaneuver the other team. Each round lasts five minutes, and the first team to win three rounds wins the match.
In their first season during the fall 2023 semester, the team had six players and four students in support roles. One role: the shoutcaster. Since all matches are livestreamed on Twitch — a video game livestreaming service — each school provides a shoutcaster to add play-by-play commentary during the match.
During the fall season, UAM’s team practiced for two hours a night, three days a week and had a match once per week. Two UAM players had participated on esports teams in high school. The other students were recruited based on their interest in the game and had varying levels of experience.
During his freshman year at UAM, Kristian Harris, a business major and the 2023-2024 captain of the UAM Esports Rocket League team, described the amount of practice required to compete, stating, “I played in high school, but college is next level. You have to be willing to challenge yourself.”
Practices consisted of completing team and individual training drills to improve skills, scouting other teams and studying professional matches to improve players’ understanding of the game. Despite going up against teams with far more experience during UAM’s first season of play, the Weevils finished the regular season fifth in the East 8 Conference and advanced to the national playoffs, where they were eventually knocked out of the bracket-style play during the semifinals by undefeated Missouri Western State University on November 27, 2023, one game short of playing for the national championship.
So, what is on the horizon for UAM Esports? During the fall 2024 semester, they will add three additional titles — League of Legends, Overwatch 2 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — to the events the team competes in. They will also have the opportunity to compete outside their current conference against other varsity esports teams in the NCAA DII Great American Conference (GAC), in which UAM Athletics competes. The GAC recently announced that, in partnership with the National Esports Collegiate Conference, it will include esports in the GAC’s competitive lineup starting this fall.
“We would like to hold our GAC esports matches the same weeks that UAM Athletics competes against a university in other varsity sports. We hope to create a lot of excitement through these paired competitions,” Fendley said.
The team will also continue to compete in NACE. “The team is playing at a high level now, called the Champion Division, but their goal is to qualify for the highest level in their league, the Grand Champion Division. If they become eligible for this, they can move to the Varsity Premier level, which is a league of the top schools who compete for money and prizes,” Burton explained. “What has surprised me is the motivation that the students have to compete. They are putting in a lot of time and effort, but they really are enjoying hanging out in the lab and building friendships.”
In other words, UAM Esports has already achieved what it set out to do: create an opportunity for students to continue to pursue their extracurricular passions and find a sense of belonging and community at UAM.
Next goal: a national championship?
Follow the Weevil Esports page on Facebook for updates on the team and links to their livestreamed matches.
For more information on UAM Esports, contact Devin Burton at burtond@uamont.edu or 870-460-1663.
