Joining a state and nationwide movement, the first season of the Southwest Louisiana High School E-Sports League, featuring middle and high schools in competitive gaming, is up and rolling.

“Lake Charles Toyota, for about seven years now, have been hosting video game tournaments and various e-sports leagues and tournaments, with an advertising movement called Scion ESports,” said Toyota and SWLA HSEL manager Corey Tarver. “We’ve worked with various games, Halo, Starcraft, League of Legends. Typically we’ve just done organizations, but we’ve always wanted to do it with high schools. This season we are doing Overwatch, but in the future we want to expand to other games.”

Eleven schools from the area are competing in the league, which has chosen Overwatch as the first game. This brings the total number of Louisiana schools up to 26.

Lake Charles Toyota and Scion eSports, as well as other local businesses, provide gaming PCs and monitors, USB mice, keyboards and headsets to the players, as well as provide a professional grade set and setting for them, at no cost to the schools, participants or taxpayers.

“We were like, we’re going to a high school gym, and we walked in and I almost teared up,” said Amy McFarlain, whose son Nathan, a junior at Sam Houston High School, competes for his school. “For these kids they did it all. It’s like a professional event. There are commentators the whole time, with a light show. If something goes wrong there is staff to switch out hardware…. Just to see the production itself, it blew my mind. We thought we were going to see a bunch of kids with their consoles, but it was a full blown event.”

Tarver added that “We’re really proud of the impressions that we give people. We want it to be like Major League Gaming. We want a huge production value, and we’re really proud of what were putting on. We’ve been building this set up for seven years.”

The E-Sports league offers a new way for students to interact with each other and represent their schools, and also transforms an activity typically played at home, either alone or in a small group, to a public setting, with an emphasis on cooperation and social skills.

“It’s a lot of strategy. All the kids plan who to play as, who will do which job, and why they do what they do. They don’t just sit down and use a joystick. They bring their systems, their own TVs. They’re serious about it. They practice all the time, and after the match they sit down and review,” added Amy. “They’re talking about getting lettermans. It’s so professional, it’s unreal… My son asked me what I thought of their match, and I told him I thought I was watching an LSU football game, are you kidding me!”

E-Sports have been growing in the last ten years, into a lucrative industry with a huge audience. The 2018 League of Legends Championship had more viewers than the NFL’s Superbowl and the NCAA’s Final Four combined, and colleges are not only sporting teams for competitions, but also offering scholarships.

“These kids have very bright futures, they are very strategic thinkers. They are technologically savvy, and sharp. I’m so excited for them,” said Amy.

Alongside the professional staging, the league will also get the chance to perform for a large audience at the season’s end.

“The championships for the middle school league, and the semi-finals and championships for the high school varsity league, will be held on April 13 at CyPhaCon,” said Tarver.

Matches are free for entry and hosted at Lake Charles- Boston, as well as are available for replay and live streaming through Twitch, on the ScionGorilla channel. You can find the schedule online at scionesports.net, or through the SWLA HSEL Facebook page.