The next LeBron of esports, an exclusive Q&A with a College Esports Director + Backyard Sports is back!

As a kid, I experienced the golden age of educational games: Oregon Trail 🐂 , Carmen Sandiego 🌎️, Math Blaster 👾, and Putt-Putt 🚗.

But one of the best was Backyard Baseball, which featured a ragtag roster of kids (think Sandlot + Bad News Bears). The 🐐 was the iconic Pablo Sanchez - maybe one of the greatest video game athletes of all time (up there with Tecmo Bowl’s Bo Jackson).

On Tuesday, it was announced the Backyard series would return to rekindle that magic from 1997. Can they make it modern enough for a new audience while making it retro enough for those who loved it?

If I were them: Make the game work for a modern era while creating apparel, collectibles, and other items for the grown ups who want to wax nostalgic.

• The Esports Chosen One? Thundermeow is a 12 year old who has hit the top rank in Valorant, Apex Legends, & Fortnite. The kid has immense mechanical skill and dedication. Managed by his parents, Thundermeow may be the first North American player groomed for esports stardom from a young age. When I look at this, I get vibes of Tiger on TV at 5 years old, stories of Bryce Harper hitting 500+ft homers at 16, and LeBron’s high school games on ESPN. There’s a long road ahead, but I’ll be watching.

• Author Dav Pilkey’s ‘Dog Man’ will be the subject of an upcoming video game. If you have kids under 16, they’ve probably read Dog Man at some point, my kids will be excited by this one.

  

• Chalk this one up in the “Didn’t know I needed this” category - LUSH Cosmetics has partnered with Minecraft for a line of products, because nothing screams clean like scrubbing yourself with a melted Creeper.

• If your child is learning to code, the National Science Foundation has a videogame design competition for K-12 with $100,000 in prizing. This is a great time to get them into STEM while also fostering their passion for gaming. (Thanks to reader Dominique from DC for this one!)

smurf: (noun/verb) - someone who poses as a less experienced player (by creating a new account, playing on their friend's account, etc.) in order to play against opponents below their usual skill level

Synonyms: dupe, hustle

“There’s no way that Jett made that play at this skill level, they have to be smurfing.”

What opportunities exist in collegiate esports for high school students?

If your student is exceptional at the game they play, scholarship is available at around 100 different institutions just like for traditional athletics…but collegiate Esports is the pinnacle of interdisciplinary study: If your student is studying Broadcasting, we can give them experience running professional level broadcasts. If your student is studying Sport Management, we can give them team managerial experience. Nutrition, Graphic Design, Marketing, Computer Science, Communication, Physical Therapy, etc. The beauty of Collegiate Esports is the ability to mimic a professional environment, helping students build their resume.  We even have about 3 research projects taking place in our Esports Center a year. Last year we had a Psychology project, Physical Therapy Ph.D. project, and a couple Computer Science projects.

How do you find or recruit students for Radford?

We use a few tools: Stayplugedin.gg to find talent and X (Twitter) to keep track of recruit activity. The most powerful recruitment tool is community. Most of our recruits come from a community that our current players are already involved in. If you are a student looking to be recruited it’s important to network. I have at least three pairs of students who met online and then one advocated for the other to be invited to our tryouts and now they both compete at Radford.

What is the biggest misconception around collegiate esports?

What I hear the most from people who aren’t actively involved in Collegiate Esports revolves around the type of student that engages with us. I think the picture of a collegiate Esports player is very distorted. We know students are playing games, its estimated that 95% of college students play some kind of video game. We know they’ll be playing in their room. Why would we, as Higher Education professionals, not harness the wants and passions of our students to teach them how to live better lives?

Since we opened our facility at Radford, we have seen overwhelmingly positive results in GPA, retention, engagement, and more. The truth is that students want to find a place to belong. We have the data to prove everyone from faculty, to sorority member, to staff, to traditional student athlete, to student government member use our Esports facility. It’s for everyone, not just the most competitive gamers, and that’s how it should be.

Do you have a fun moment that you can share from your interactions with a parent of one of your players/students?

I love when parents get into Collegiate Esports the same way they would traditional athletics. We take a lot from traditional sports. One of the most important things we take is sportsmanship expectations. A Rocket League player’s father attended a LAN tournament with us last semester. The LAN fell apart. What should have been a 2 hour tournament turned into a 7 hour debacle of phone hotspots and broken equipment. When competition finally got underway, tensions were high because of everything that went wrong. Aside from how long this dad stuck around with us, he was there to hype up each of our players individually and take pictures. In the midst of the chaos, he positioned himself to be able to redirect our players to shake the hands of their opponents regardless of the outcome. When parents take ownership of the process, it reassures students of the legitimacy of their work. You don’t have to know anything about the game to make an impact on the experience.

What are the most popular games at Radford?

In this order: Valorant, Overwatch, NBA 2K, and Rocket League

If you have more questions, you can reach Doug at [email protected] and be sure to follow Radford Esports on Instagram & X.

I’m excited for the weeks ahead. While everyone is thinking about Pumpkin Spice Lattes, I’m excited to talk gaming Halloween costumes and the top video game releases for the 2024 holiday season.

Good luck to all of you parents getting your kids off to school in the next few weeks!

Chris

Connect with me: LinkedIn, X (Twitter)

What I’m playing: Elden Ring