Region One Education Service Center to kick off esports tournament

This undated photo shows a Region One Education Service Center esports tournament. (Courtesy: Region One ESC)

The Region One Education Service Center is gearing up to host an esports tournament for elementary schools that emphasizes promoting teamwork, communication and technical skills for students.

Region One distance learning specialist and lead for the esports initiative, David Rivera, said one of the main goals is to help grow esports programs in the region and within districts.

The initiative kicked off in 2022, Rivera said.

“We’re getting close to doing this for about three years and seeing, you know, tremendous growth in our region,” he said. “A lot of these districts have little pockets or a couple of schools that have esports but our goal is to really kind of get all the districts involved, and that way we could have those pipelines, because eventually we would like to connect them to universities.”

Among the benefits of participating in esports is collaboration, communications, problem solving, decision making and even learning how to use a camera, graphic design and streaming software.

“A part of our initiative is to grow out from that core of just gaming and also having these programs … more sustainable by offering non-gamer roles.” Rivera said. “Things like shoutcasting … shoutcasting is pretty much commentary, doing the streaming, running the event. So they’re kind of like event coordinators, facilitators. IT support by setting up, whether it be the Nintendo switches or the PCs, getting all that set up and doing the video, photography, doing the video editing of the event, doing social media.”

The upcoming tournament will be a team-based competition around Super Smash Bros.

The tournament is open to 16 schools and Rivera said there are about 12 schools currently signed up.

Schools from Donna ISD to United ISD in Laredo are participating.

Region One will also host an esports tournament for middle and high schools later in the year.

Rivera said any schools looking to partake in tournaments can fill out a google form through the Region One esports website or contact Rivera at drivera@esc1.net.

“I was at a district that offered esports in their secondary … I was able to see some of my former students there who were part of my programs,” he said. “They shared how they kind of came out of their shell. They were a little bit more introverted but giving them that opportunity to participate in an event or in a club that they normally wouldn’t, put themselves out there to participate in a school activity. This really opened the doors for them.”

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