In its first season ever competing in electronic sports gaming, Riverside High School had three seniors who advanced to the highest level of the state competition.
John Walker Ross, Devin Addison and Mauricio Gonzalez, make up the three-man Riverside senior eSports team. The three Bulldogs recently advanced all the way to the semifinals of the Rocket League competition. Rocket League is a vehicular soccer video game developed and published by Psyonix. The Riverside trio finished in fourth place out of 38 teams who competed in the Rocket League competition, sanctioned by the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA).
The Bulldog team also finished in eighth place out of 62 teams in the Super Smash Bros. Competition. Super Smash Bros. is a crossover fighting game series made by Nintendo.
This is the first year eSports is an officially sanctioned state championship for MHSAA-member schools with champions crowned during both the fall and spring league seasons.
Charles Daniels, a lifelong gamer and art teacher at Riverside, coached the Bulldog eSports team. Every day the team would come to his room and take out the consoles from his closet and practice for the competitions, which are played remotely between teams at different schools.
Daniels described the first season as a tremendous success.
“My thing was if you are going to be on the team you have to show up,” Daniels said. “I also told them I would rather lose all season then deal with someone who has bad sportsmanship, makes bad grades or has behavior problems.
“I am proud of the fact we were able to do so much with so little. All together we spent maybe $2,000 for the program which compared to other sports is astronomically small.
Daniels added, “This is more about giving the kids the opportunity than about winning, the winning was a complete surprise. It blew me out of the water how good these kids were. A lot of kids say they are really good at this game or that game. I wasn’t expecting for them to really back it up. I was just expecting them to come and have fun and compete.”
Ross, Gonzales and Addison were all friends before joining the eSports team. It helped that they were also already familiar with both of the video games they competed in.
“Even though I am a senior, I think it is really important that eSports continues at our school,” Ross said. “There are tons of kids I know who don’t go out of their way to meet people. This is a good opportunity for them to get out of their shell.”
Addison added that not every student is meant to be a great athlete and eSports are a way for more students to have a sense of school pride and a sense of camaraderie.
“Some people naturally like sports, but there are more people who are more comfortable doing this. Not everyone wants to bang on someone else in sports like football,” Addison said.
Riverside athletic director Brad Andrews added that he was proud of how well the eSports team did and that the players on the team were fine representatives for the school.
