You may know what High School won a state championship in football, basketball and baseball, maybe even tennis, but do you know how your team did in E-Sports? 

E-Sports refers to tournaments involving video games and is growing throughout the U.S. as a competitive sport, and Utah is no different. Thanks to Ken Garff, who sponsors and organizes tournaments, most High Schools in Utah have at least one and sometimes several teams. As it is not a sanctioned sport, as of yet, these teams compete as a club sport. 

I talked with Anthony Vick at Hurricane High School about E-Sports. He is the computer science teacher and organizes the teams at Hurricane. “Each High School has an e-ports team that is available to all of the students,” said Vick. “The three games that we play mainly is Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Rocket League.” 

They compete mostly within the Ken Garff E-Sports league and these competitions go across the state. There are also regional events and then a seasonal tournament in the spring followed by the state final. This year the final event was held at the University of Utah. 

This year in Mario Kart, Hurricane High School took 2nd place in state. In Rocket League they took 3rd place. The State Competition was well represented by Southern Utah Schools including Pine View, Crimson and Dixie. 

“The competition is kind of amazing,” said Vick. “These kids take it serious. The region was between Hurricane and Pine View and it was insane. It was like sitting at a championship basketball game. Kids were yelling and screaming.” 

They’re trying to get as many kids as possible to come in and see what the computer science teachers are doing and give these kids a chance to compete, according to Vick.

It’s pretty cool to see what is happening in E-Sports and the way it is growing. It may not be long before E-Sports becomes a sanctioned sport here in Utah. 

 

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