Esports competes in national and state level leagues — Texas Scholastic Esports (TexSEF) and National Scholastic Esports League (HSEL) — with 78 kids in 24 rosters, in a total of eight games, including, “Valorant,” “Overwatch,” “League of Legends,” “Rocket League” and “Chess.”
Following last season’s head coach Jaden Gorham left the school, leaving Kristopher Phillips, who had been the assistant coach, to take over the reins this year.
“It’s been hard, since [Gorham] knew his way around a lot of things,” varsity “League of Legends” captain Thomas Cho said. “We’ve been able to fill in the gaps for some parts of it, but availability and roster changes figured out [are still hard].”
Along with Gorham’s departure, a majority of varsity rosters for games like “Valorant,” “League of Legends” and “Overwatch” had multiple seniors graduate, some of whom helped found the program.
“[Replacing seniors] is one of the more difficult things about high school,” Phillips said. “The [professional teams] have free agency and trading and colleges can recruit new members. What that comes down to is building up a system that allows us to continue to maintain what we want to continue to grow.”
As a program, the team won 42 out of 56 games this year, and it sits at the top of the leaderboards in “Valorant” and “Overwatch” for TexSEF and HSEL. Gorham is now in charge of competitive “Valorant” for the state; he organizes competitions and helps run the Valorant league, but is also available to help the team as a consultant.
“Last season, there was an emphasis on culture,” Esports president Hansu Kim said. “The most important thing to me is consistency. Keeping each of my players accountable to constantly being in tip-top shape throughout the entire season and the postseason. [This year] I know we can win it all.”
Each team practices outside of school and plays two matches per week, one in TexSEF and one in HSEL. The teams watch and study their game replay, as well as playing together and practicing strategies for upcoming tournaments.
“We put as much effort and practice as we can into this,” Cho said. “I’ve been communicating to the team about getting extra practice in, switching out players if we need to and just communicating the problems that I’ve been seeing with the team.”
This year, the program has continued to grow, adding several new teams for games like “Overwatch” and “League of Legends.” Phillips said he is also looking to add some console and sports games to the program, and is searching for funding to enable that idea, but they are still looking for more involvement from the community.
“We can work with kids, if you want to play, and you play a lot and you’re committed, reach out to me,” Phillips said. “We’ll figure out a spot for you. We’ll coach you up. We’ll make you better, and we’ll see who you fit within, how well you play together and how well you can communicate — whether or not you have the best aim in the entire country.”
The teams also play sporadically in tournaments throughout the year, with varsity Valorant already winning the Summer Showdown at the Carrollton Rec Center, a tournament where they competed against college, highschool and other teams.
“We’re very well versed,” Kim said. “We have good talent because we’re such a big school, but trying to be able to bond the teams together is important. So I’m looking forward [to seeing] all our hard work is going to pay off in the end.”
