Ask Dr. Ross

What is College Esports? Exploring UT Tyler's Competitive Gaming Resources

• Catherine Ross • Season 3 • Episode 7

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When we think of college sports, we imagine football scholarships and packed stadiums.  But what if you're a competitor who crushes it at Mario Kart or would rather watch Fortnite streams for fun?

We've got you covered.

This week, Dr. Ross and student producer Ashley Worley explore the realm of Esports with Kenna Rivers, UT Tyler's team captain for Rainbow Six Siege.  As an avid gamer and junior Nursing major, Kenna reveals the ways Esports can transform a student's college experience for the better, helping them develop teamwork, leadership, and practical career skills in a fun environment.  For casual or new players in the crowd, she shares how the Esports lab's resources create opportunities to have fun with friends, build community, and even win prize money.  Whoever you are and however you enjoy gaming, Esports has something for you.

Have more questions about Esports in college life?  Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com or leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you!  

Watch UT Tyler Esports live on Twitch and follow their socials here: https://linktr.ee/esportsUTT

SPEAKER_00:

Stay tuned to the Ask Dr. Ross Podcast. It's created to give you info to succeed at college. Our hosts are highly qualified. Dr. Katherine Ross is a member of the University of Texas Systems Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She's also a popular professor of 19th century English literature. Ask Dr. Ross is a community service of the University of Texas at Tyler.

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to another episode of Ask Dr. Ross. Today, even though we've heard a lot about athletics at universities, we want to talk with someone who can tell us a little bit about esports, and that is Miss Kenna Rivers, who is a junior here at UT Tyler. She's a nursing student. And we understand that you know a whole lot about esports at UT Tyler and are even competing. Why don't you tell us when did you start getting involved in esports? Probably what, when you were a little kid?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so esports itself is more like competitive. So I got into video games very young. My brothers played video games. I wanted to play video games. I think the first video game I ever saw my brother playing was I think it was Left 4 Dead 2. That was a zombie game. There's not an esports version of it, but that was a fun game for me, and I told my mom, yeah, I want an Xbox. And the rest is history.

SPEAKER_03:

Pretty much. There we go. So now when you say esports, that's actually competitive. So you gotta tell us about that, because I don't know how many people are that familiar with this wonderful new world of sporting.

SPEAKER_02:

It depends on the game. Like some games are like competitive in their own nature, but then you have games that kind of go to that next level. So the team that I currently am the captain for is Rainbow Six Siege, and that's a very Whoa whoa.

SPEAKER_03:

What's the name of it again?

SPEAKER_02:

Rainbow Six Siege. As in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, and what kind of a game is it?

SPEAKER_02:

It's a tactical FPS shooter. FPS means first person. It's really big on like how are you gonna go about this round? How are you gonna attack this round or defend it? Is it strategies then? Very, very strat The match will start and you'll start with banning an operator. So each side gets to pick an operator they can ban. And they're adding new operators every year, but each operator has their own unique abilities that they can bring to that match. So on defense, there's characters. One goes by the name of Bandit. He's a year one operator, I believe. And his gadget is an electrified car battery that can electrify a wall. And you'd think, okay, well, that's cool. So what is that, what's the point in that? But if you pair that with somebody who has like good synergy, like a new operator that just got added is tuberao, he can freeze gadgets and players. You can have people on attack who have to, let's say, breach that wall. So you really have to think about what is the other team doing? What is my team going to do to beat that team on their map?

SPEAKER_03:

And since these are folks that are competing across campuses, you all been playing this for years and you've got this all doped out way ahead of time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. You have to know things like call-outs or like where they are on the map, and then also what this operator does and so on. It's confusing, but for some people it's just like second nature.

SPEAKER_03:

So the one that you enjoy most is more realistic looking. It looks like army guys and guns and Yes, ma'am. Now, is it pretty violent?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, that's a big thing that everybody says is that video games are violent, but I personally don't think so. There's always sliders. So if you prefer not to have the blood, you don't have to have it. Sliders is like a setting where you can go in and just turn it off if you don't want to see it. Most people like to have it on because it indicates like, oh, I've hit them, but I maybe I didn't down them, but I see the blood on the wall, so I know I hit them, and so on.

SPEAKER_03:

So now when you're competing, is it you against one other player or a group of players? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02:

So it kind of depends on the game that you're playing. So for my game specifically, it's 5v5. So you have five people on defense and five people on offense.

SPEAKER_03:

And so it's five people from your team and five people from the other team. So how do you practice?

SPEAKER_02:

There's a couple different things you can do. For my game specifically, whenever we come up with new strats, which is like how we'll set up site or how we'll attack, we'll sometimes we'll do it just the five of us. And we'll talk about a strat and we'll use Discord and we'll pull up basically like a top-down view of the map. This is where you're gonna put your stuff, this is where you're gonna sit, this is where you're gonna watch. And then once we feel like we have it down, then we'll find other teams to basically scrimmage with.

SPEAKER_03:

So now let's back up a little bit. You showed up at UT Tyler and you were already a gamer. How did you become an esports player?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I didn't know when I first got here that we had an esports team, and I was getting lunch at Chick-fil-A and I saw it on the TV that they were having tryouts for my game specifically. And I was like, Oh, I didn't know we had an esports team, you know, might as well go and try out. So how do you try out It kind of depends on the game and how the captain wants to run it. I know when I tried out, I was at a little bit of a disadvantage because esports is typically played on PC or a computer. And to do that, you had to play on keyboard and mouse. It's a lot different. That was the first time I had ever played on keyboard and mouse was when I tried out for the team. So I was really nervous I wasn't gonna make the team because I wasn't very good at keyboard and mouse. I knew it was going on. I played the game for a long time. I just wasn't very good at the controls yet. When we were trying out, they were looking more for game sense. Did you know what was going on? Do you know what this means when somebody says that they're top mez and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_03:

Did you make the team the first time?

SPEAKER_02:

I did. I did. I was a sub player, but that was okay because I totally knew why. I just wasn't very good at keyboard and mouse yet. So how long did it take you to get good at the keyboard and mouse? About two weeks. Two weeks.

SPEAKER_03:

So how many hours a week do you practice?

SPEAKER_02:

It really just depends on I played. We practiced at least once a week. So for me, I didn't have a computer yet, so I'd have to go to the lab and play.

SPEAKER_03:

So the university supplies a space with the computers.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_02:

So how often I would say about at least once a week. We'll say at least 10 hours a week. And then if we had a game that week, probably closer to to twelve.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm curious what you could tell our listeners about the lab. I've passed by it every once in a while. I used to be a tour guide, and so they would tell us to point at the esports lab, but I never actually got to go in or know more about it. So what is the esports lab and how did it get started?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not entirely sure how the esports lab started. I think it was just, you know, one of those things where it was getting popular in other colleges. The eSport Lab itself, it's got PCs and monitors and you know the specs that you can play on. But it's not just for people who are on a competitive esports team. We have community hours where the doors open. You're more than welcome to come in, play any games that we have on there, and we have all sorts of games. We have Minecraft, Apex, Fortnite, anything that you know you can think of, you can play. And then of course there's hours set specifically for esports teams to practice. We just got approved for brand new PCs,$50,000 to go into 10 new PCs. Wow. And just to give you like an idea, when I built mine, my PC is a little bit on the mid to lower end and was about$1,200. So they get a little expensive, but I think we're looking to really kind of step it up because that has been a big problem with us is not being able to compete at the level that we need to because the specs on our computers just aren't there yet. But I'm not worried about that come the fall. The brand new PCs will be built, so we'll be able to really compete. And that means other people can come in and play as well. Because that was a problem where we would have a PC that would blue screen and then we'd open up for community hours when we'd only have a couple PCs that were available for everybody to play on.

SPEAKER_01:

So this sounds actually a lot like traditional sports. You have basically a gym and you set aside time to practice. You have special equipment for it, and that's that's pretty cool. And coaching sounds like.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, there is some coaching that goes into it. Is there a team captain or a coach? Are you all self-organized? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02:

So right now, I know we're in the process of getting a new esports coordinator. That person really sets things up for us. I believe that we're still sponsored by Red Bull. So we have that, and like our esports coordinator talks to them and like keeps us sponsored and stuff like that. But the way that we do it in between the different games, it kind of depends. So like for my team, we have two captains. It's me and one other person. And we just kind of like go in and we look at it for the week and say, okay, here's when our players are available to practice, here's what we need to work on, and so on. Because we have community leaders where they set up like community events for us to go to. Here recently, we just did a kickball tournament. And so it was everybody in esports that wanted to play, and then it was open for everybody else in the college. And that was a way for esports to kind of mingle with other students who maybe didn't know we had an esports team.

SPEAKER_03:

And so that was on campus, but now do you do community events off our campus for folks from the high schools or the local community colleges?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't believe we have yet, but we're really looking towards it. I believe they did this one time, I think it was before I started going to college here. They set up a big PC gaming tournament in the recreational gym. And they set out a tarp, set up a bunch of PCs, and anybody could come. High schools, colleges. I mean, there's pictures of it. It looked pretty fun, but I wasn't here at the time. I was still in high school.

SPEAKER_03:

So now tell us a little bit about intercollegiate competition, because I think you said you have played with people from James Madison University on the East Coast and Stephen F. Austin, which is down in Nacky Doges, Texas. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, ma'am. So the league that we play in currently is called PlayFi. They set it up for us, but we're able to enter in and you have to pay to enter your team in. But then you're put into brackets, and it's kind of like a regular sports team. You play one team, and if you beat that team, you move on to the next and next and so on. We were in a double round robin this last semester because there were only, I think there was only five or six teams. So we played every team twice in our bracket.

SPEAKER_03:

Are these brackets, are they like ranked the way we have D1, D2, D3 for sports, you know, D1 being the hardest and most competitive and they get scholarships and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

So each game that's competitive usually has their own ranking system. So our ranking system for Siege is based off of tiers, and our tiers go bronze, copper, silver, gold, platinum, emerald, and then diamond. Diamond is considered your top players, and then your top top is called champ, and they're ranked globally.

SPEAKER_03:

Globally? Well, I understand that they play all around the world China, Korea, Russia, the UK.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, ma'am. So you have esports, which is like your collegiate teams, and then you have for us, it's called Pro League. And those are the pros.

SPEAKER_03:

And so they have sponsors like Red Bull and Nike. The look on your face is saying this is serious.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, they get some pretty good sponsorships. And you know, the way that I think it's different, because like on football, you'll have like when you have your commercials, here's your sponsors for that. For us, whenever they're streaming the games, which is they usually stream on Twitch, you'll have at least one or two sponsorships up there at least the whole time. And then, like, if you're sponsored, you know, you'll get the names on the jerseys and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, see, that was the other thing I wanted to ask you about is how do your fans get to see this?

SPEAKER_02:

So we stream on Twitch, and then we're gonna be a little more proactive about it this upcoming semester, about letting people know when we're gonna have games and stuff. So when I'm playing the game, I can only see my perspective as long as I'm alive. For me specifically, I can get on cams or any gadgets that we have that might give intel. And so that's my point of view. But from a viewer's point of view, we usually have a caster who is in the casting spot who's able to click on each different character and see what's going on throughout the game. They can also see from a top-down perspective, or they can free roam with a free camera to trying to see what's going on. So as long as you have a good caster who's also explaining what's going on while they're telling the viewer who's watching, it's pretty interesting and it keeps you entertained because they can switch from not only our perspective, but the enemy team's perspective. So it gives you a unique look into what's going on.

SPEAKER_03:

So they can see all five teammates playing against the other five all at one time? Yes, ma'am. Wow, that's complicated stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

It gets a little confusing, but as long as you have a caster that was at least into it, you know, they if somebody gets a kill and they're like, yay, they they got a kill, then you're pretty entertained because you're you're always like, There's so much going on, you know, how am I supposed to keep up? But it's entertaining. And I think for me watching it, it's like, yeah, I don't want to put the phone down. I want to keep watching.

SPEAKER_03:

Can you really see that much on an iPhone?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's better like on a TV, but like if I'm on the go or if I just want to check in on the score to see who's winning, they'll usually have the scoreboard put up and like what ops people are playing, who's currently on the roster, who's currently playing, who's subbed, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03:

Now, Kenna, what do you enjoy about it? What is the experience of this esport?

SPEAKER_02:

I just love being able to play with my friends. It's a hard game. It's a very hard learning curve. I enjoy teaching players how to play the game, especially if they've never played it before. For me, it's really just getting to have the experience to play with my friends. Because I feel like you don't get that a lot. And then I don't want to say the stakes aren't as high as if you're playing soccer. I played soccer in high school. And it's like if you were to lose a game of soccer, everybody's sad. And it's the same way with esports, but at least then I can specifically go in with esports and see what went wrong in that game. Because you can watch film in soccer, but I can see each player's perspective specifically and see what they were doing wrong.

SPEAKER_03:

So you can help each other be better. Tell me about esportsmanship. Esportsmanship.

SPEAKER_02:

It really depends on the game that you're playing. My game, it's a little more on the toxic side. Unfortunately, that's just how the game was built. It's very old. A lot of different people play it, but I will say when it comes to more competitive play, it's more sportsmanlike. You know, a little teasing here and there is very common. But I know on some games like the Valorant, they're pretty sportsmanlike all around.

SPEAKER_03:

I was reading about issues with the sports. They've even talked about the 2027 Olympics having some esports events and the Olympic Games International Commission, I guess, is very concerned about things like sportsmanship. I read something about how sometimes the stress of the competitiveness can get to students. Or you're saying you'd it's more fun.

SPEAKER_02:

For us, I especially like to keep it very lively and very fun for my team. Losing in any game is never fun, whether it's soccer or a video game. But for me, it's never let me harp on one player who did something wrong. It's what can we do better moving on to this next round? Because for me, the biggest thing I always say is if you ruin morale, the game is already over.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, good attitude. I like that. Now, how long does a typical do you call it, is it a game, a match?

SPEAKER_02:

So for our game, we do best of three maps. One map usually consists, I believe with our rules, it's first to seven. So that's seven rounds in one map. And it can go where one team gets a point and the other one gets a point and it goes to overtime match point. I think one game that goes all the way to overtime match point can be just about an hour. I want to say that's the longest it can go.

SPEAKER_03:

But then you do two more games.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. If let's say that you win the first one, lose the next one, then you have the tiebreaker, but you can win the first two and they and it's just over.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you do it all in the same sitting?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. We do get breaks in between the games as long as both teams agree. But yes, you are sitting there for a little bit. And it can be stressful if the games are close every single time. So I make sure that my players get up, stretch your legs before this next game, clear your mind, close your eyes. I do recommend, if you do like to play video games competitively, some blue light glasses.

SPEAKER_03:

I was wondering about that because your eyes can get real tired. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, do you all have uniforms?

SPEAKER_02:

We do. I got my jersey in my first semester. So if you play for competitive esports league, then you get a jersey. The front of it will have who you're sponsored by, and ours are blue with orange sleeves, and the back of it has your gamer tag or what you like to go by. So our team, we have it split. We have varsity A and then varsity B. And then we just go by UT Tyler or UTT. Varsity A plays usually in the varsity league of Playfi. So it's a little bit harder. They're at that top, that diamond or champ level, and then we have varsity B that plays in the lower league. They still compete. They just don't play in as as hard of a bracket. So we don't want to put them in a bracket where they're just not gonna win. So we put them in the same bracket that they're gonna play the same level of skill.

SPEAKER_03:

Now, is there an esports season or do you play all year? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02:

There is a season for the league that we play in. They do a fall and spring season. So you'll pay to play both seasons at the beginning of fall.

SPEAKER_03:

You pay to play?

SPEAKER_02:

I believe the school pays them I th I think it's a thousand for the fall and spring semester. I could be wrong. I'm not sure. The players themselves don't have to pay. We didn't have to pay for our jerseys or anything like that. But you also are playing for a prize pool. So if we were to win, we would win the money that was associated with every team that put their money in. So I think the prize pool for this last season, this spring season, was 2600.

SPEAKER_03:

And what does that do? Go back to the university then to support the next year's games?

SPEAKER_02:

So for our winnings, it depends. It usually just gets dispersed back to the players.

SPEAKER_03:

To the players. Whoa, that's interesting. I know it's pretty good incentive. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of times we talk about what sports do for us, physical sports. They make us healthy for the rest of our lives. They teach team sports. And you know, one of the things that we're told by businesses right now is that students need to learn how to work on teams because that's one of the biggest necessities in the professional world. Sounds like it would work the same way for you all, though that would be another benefit of this esports.

SPEAKER_02:

I definitely think so. With this, it definitely comes into more team play, I think, because in a sport that's more physical, it's not just teamwork, it's also how physically fit are you? And that doesn't really come into play in esports, it's more of the communication that you have in between your teams.

SPEAKER_03:

Aaron Powell Yeah, that's a big difference is that you don't have to work out every day and, you know, do laps and sit-ups and weights and things like that. But you do have to practice your personal skills, right? And you do that sort of for fun though, because it's a game, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Powell And you know, we'll hold our practices, but a lot of our players just play in their free time because they like to play the game.

SPEAKER_01:

One of the big things I I was hoping to hear about was in the context of like student engagement, how it may help some students to get connected on campus is when they're going to a college and you know you think about people who move someplace and they don't have anybody there. Have you found that esports can help students to connect with each other or to make good friends when they go off to college?

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. You know, for some people it's just their thing, you know. Like some people, you know, they want to go to college to play soccer. And for other people, they're going to college for education and they feel alone because they are either hundreds of miles away or, you know, they have no friends. They just started. I think esports is definitely the place to meet new friends and to make new connections. And like I said earlier, like we don't just play video games. So it's not like you join the esports and now that's just your little circle. Of course it can be if that's what you want it to be. We also like to reach out to other student organizations or other students and just let them have those connections to other people, the ability to meet other people and really just get them comfortable with the college life. Because I know when I first came here, I didn't know anybody and I spent all the time in my dorm. So I think we're striving towards making student engagement like our number one priority. We're hoping that by having the open hours or just being able to meet other players that they're able to kind of take them away from playing by themselves.

SPEAKER_03:

One of my biggest concerns about college is that it is easy to get isolated, especially with the way we use media today. And so it's a really wonderful opportunity for you to develop some leadership skills and widen the community. You know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is what do you want folks to know about esports? Because I know there's some stereotypes and some things that I'll bet you'd like to correct about that. And so I want to invite you to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I would just say it it's not just sitting in front of the screen all day and playing video games. It's making those friendships, it's meeting those new people. And especially in a college setting, it is that branching out. Let's not stay isolated, let's meet these new people. And then once you've made those connections, it doesn't just have to be esports either. You know, oh we're we're friends now, let's let's go out to go get something to eat or let's go watch a movie together. And as a captain, I like to do that with my team. Let's go, let's go all get some food or something. Let's take a step away from, you know, just being on the screen and let's go do something else. Big thing with esports is they're like, well, you're just playing video games all day. It's just not the case.

SPEAKER_03:

Without giving away too many of your game strategies that help you to be winning, what are some of the skills that you think of helping your teammates to develop?

SPEAKER_02:

I think skills that can be applied in both video games and just real life. Very big one with a lot of video games that are either it's controller or keyboard or mouse is hand-eye coordination. You gotta know what you're doing, you know, and it comes with the mechanics of the game. So for me as a nurse, like hand eye coordination, that's a big thing. If I'm putting it in IV, foley, anything like that, I need to be able to have that. And I feel like esports is giving that to me better than, you know, if I just didn't play video games at all. There's problem solving, there's flexibility, being able to adapt. I mean, there's just a ton of things that esports can give you skills-wise that could be in real life too. I mean, it's it's pretty endless.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, we really appreciate your coming out this afternoon to talk to us about this, and we're looking forward to sharing what you've told us about it. It's lovely to have talked with you.

SPEAKER_02:

I appreciate you guys for having me out, and you know, I can send you guys some stuff from our practices if you want to see. You bet. We bet.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, Ashley, I guess is that a wrap? That's a wrap. Yeah, and if anybody listening has any questions about esports or a question that maybe we could refer to Kenna for, you can leave a comment or send us an email at adrquestions at gmail.com. See you next week.

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Catherine Ross

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Ashley Worley

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