Boot up your computers everyone, the world of E-sports, a major sport within Asia, finally hits Colorado following CHSAA accepting the sport into its roster.

East High School has decided to join the E-sports program becoming a flagship high school being the first school in Pueblo to create a team.

The program was approved by CHSAA in February as a pilot program starting its first season in September. It has partnered with PlayVS, a company dedicated to bringing high school e-sports into light, to bring this new and innovative program to life. It has seen major success with over 50 schools across Colorado joining this initiative.

The teacher running the program at East is French teacher Madame Garcia, who states the program has already seen positive reception amongst the student population.

“Getting the program running has been extremely difficult,” states Garcia, “We have been in constant communication with the IT department trying to get the program running. Following multiple other difficulties such as a lack of an account for funding and the internet of the school itself, it has been hard to even start the program and it almost failed.”

Despite the hardship and challenges the East team, Duplicate, has prevailed establishing a presence within the school starting its season strong becoming second in the state during the first week by forfeit. It’s other team, the East High Rocketters, however, continues to see struggles not by the other teams, but by the technology at the school.

“We have been working with the IT department trying to solve this issue as both League of Legends and Rocket League have had multiple problems when attempting to start the program. League of Legends has managed to work and we have not had many problems with that game, but Rocket League has had problems even opening and running on our current computers,” Garcia says, “We have a direct line to the IT department now to help fix our computers.”

“Thankfully, I have had a great team of students to help me organize this and to even start it up, this could have taken much longer without their assistance.”

The games offered by PlayVS stand at three currently with more proposed games coming soon, currently the games offered are as follows:

League of Legends: A top down MOBA of two teams competing with champions to destroy the other’s nexus over multiple game modes.

Rocket League: A soccer game utilizing vehicles.

Smite: A 3D MOBA following similar rules to League of Legends.

58 Schools currently have teams for these games, with 58 League of Legends teams, 31 Rocket League teams, and six Smite teams.

“E-sports is such a new idea that we haven’t had the time to adapt as much as we could with normal sports, but I believe this sport will be extremely beneficial to everyone,” states Garcia, “E-sports can allow anyone who is willing to play an opportunity to play a sport even those who have disabilities, unlike your usual sports who normally couldn’t allow people with disabilities to play. We wish to create a co-ed sport where everyone can play and get along. But like all CHSAA sports you must be eligible.”

Currently 16 students are registered to play under PlayVS, with multiple other students interested in the future title proposed to be released, Overwatch. “As more students come into our school having years of playing games I expect this number to start rising as more games are entered and as younger students enter the field,” Garcia stated.

“The price is also cheap to enter and play, all you need is a computer and an internet connection. Transportation is only needed to and from where we play.”

The introduction of e-sports from East as a spearhead has interested other schools as well around the city, with CSU-P establishing an e-sports team.

Matches are usually 4-4:30 p.m. every Tuesday for League of Legends, while Rocket League is 4 p.m. every Thursday. Spectators are welcome and those that wish to join can talk to Madame Garcia in the French room, room 6.