By Riley Holtzclaw
Various teachers hear loud noises and yelling from around after school. It’s not the gymnasium, nor the cafeteria. Where could this be coming from? Well, the answer is inside of Room 207, Mr. Rob Summer’s room during Esports.
With the new school year, clubs are starting back up. They are great social sessions and activities to spend time with friends and other students. Many clubs are well known, but some clubs are a lot more elusive. Esports is one of those clubs.
Esports is a club where members play against each other in a competitive gaming environment. They face off in games such as Super Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Mario Kart, and more.
They meet in Mr. Summer’s room every Wednesday and Thursday, from 3:30 until 4:30 p.m.
“It’s a lot of fun that people are playing against each other and enjoying the camaraderie and competition in a safe environment,” Mr. Summer said. ”It can get noisy sometimes, but it’s not a bad thing.”
This is the first time Mr. Summer is running the club.
In past years, Mr. Kurt Griffis ran the club in his room, and earlier than that it was Mr. Curt Grams, who is now working at Purdue Polytechnic in Anderson as the lab manager.
With Griffis’s schedule being packed, he couldn’t host the club, which led to club president Brandon Nesbitt asking Mr. Summer to be the sponsor.
“I wanted a teacher who I knew would be into video games and be fairly laid back,” Brandon said. “I’ve had Mr. Summer for a few years, and I figured he’d be a great pick.”
Mr. Summer was surprised to be picked for the sponsor, but accepted his role with gratitude. He has had experience with video game culture his whole life,
“When I was in high school, we would have entire events where we would bring our own TVs and game consoles to one friend’s house, and we would set up an LAN party in their basement,” he said. “Just having a whole bunch of friends in one spot playing games at the same time, face to face with each other, was just much more fun that playing against a bunch of random people online.”
This is also Brandon’s first time being the president of a club. Last year, he was selected to be the next president by 2025 graduate Ethan Chrich.
“As a president, it is a major responsibility to have this role,” Brandon said. ”I keep track of people to make sure they are in line, decide what games we’re going to play, and what we are going to use within the club.”
One of the new members, Hayden Stanley, thinks that the new ownership is going smoothly.
“I’m having a lot of fun here with my friends,” he stated.
Brandon had to get the club approved in the office, and had to make pages upon pages of rules to get it fully approved, such as what behavior is acceptable and how the club would function. Brandon described the process as long and tedious, but he was able to get the greenlight after a couple weeks of hard work.
They finally met on Sept. 10, but there was a slight issue. It turns out that the HDMI port wasn’t working and wouldn’t project the port to the projector, which is a slight issue because the club has used the projectors as a way to essentially have a large monitor to play games on.
After having IT come down, the problem was revealed to be a single, unplugged cable. After connecting it to the port, it immediately switched over to project what was on the Nintendo Switch to the screen. However, membership has been low, and only a handful of students show up.
Mr. Summer and Brandon think there are some improvements that could help boost the club’s popularity.. Mr. Summer is thinking of asking Griffis to borrow his room for the meetings, so that they can have multiple computers and areas for individual games. Brandon’s ideas involve more games in the rotation, making it so there is something for everyone.
Hayden thinks that investing in some more technology and devices could boost membership.
The more people there are, the more opportunities open up for the club. These being: more games being playable, tournaments, and the possibility of competing against other schools. The latter hasn’t been done since 2023 with the VALORANT and Rocket League teams.
Many might wonder, what is the point of the club? Summer has a story that might change the doubters.
“(When I was) in high school I played video games more than sports. I didn’t have a lot of athletic avenues to pursue, and I just wasn’t good at most sports.” Mr. Summer said. “So the fact that a group of like-minded individuals can just enjoy video games together is a benefit overall. Because I love video games, and I want people to be able to (enjoy) spending time gaming with one another.”
