By Alex Kurtz, Sports Editor
Esports are a rapidly growing field in the United States. While other eastern countries such as South Korea and China have adopted various games as near-national pastimes, here in America the wave has only become visible to the masses in the last few years.
Since then however, multiple colleges have begun to invest heavily in the scene. UC Irvine in California was the first college in the U.S. to create their own funded collegiate esports program and many schools such as the University of Texas-Dallas and Ohio State University have done the same.
While Susquehanna does not have a fancy building or scholarships ready for the next great esports athlete, students at the university have been competing against some of the best schools in the country in “League of Legends.”
The game, made by Los Angeles-based Riot Games, has become an international sensation since its launch in 2009, and has over 70 million players across the world. There are five players on each team where they compete in a multiplayer online battle area where the goal is to take the enemy’s nexus, a gem, in the back of their base. Going into their ninth competitive season, there are now major leagues in North America, Europe, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and minor regions in many other countries across the world.
After the success of the game internationally, Riot Games started the collegiate program a few years ago, and has since seen steady growth from mostly student-run clubs.
Currently, there are over 500 registered clubs in the ULoL program across the U.S. and Canada.
Susquehanna’s group started in 2015 and was officially recognized by Riot Games that year as a collegiate club.
Last year the team com-peted with five players, one for each role in the game, and three members of the coach-ing staff. All of which were students, or former students, at Susquehanna.
While the team did not have much success against large schools with a larger playerbase to choose from, the returning players hope to see an improve-ment for the 2019 season, which will start in late January.
This year, the River Hawks will field two teams for the season. The main team will compete against some of the best teams in the country, and the under-gold team will offer a chance for less-experienced members to play during their time in college.
Tryouts for both teams are currently underway and are open to any student at Susque-hanna under certain requirements. Their account needs to be at least level 30 and the player has to have played ten ranked games to receive a placement in the game’s system.
The system currently scales from the rank of Bronze V to Challenger, which only the top 200 players in the region can hold the title of. Next season however, a new rank of Iron will exist below Bronze.
Players in the collegiate pro-gram will have all champions in the game unlocked for their account for the duration of the 2019 season. They will also re-ceive unique items in game that show their status as a collegiate player. Rosters for both teams will be finalized by Nov. 30.
If interested in joining Susquehanna’s ULoL team, contact club vice president Brian Turner, turnerb@susqu.edu. Perspective players must be level 30 or above and be ranked either during season eight or currently ranked in the preseason.