The E-Sports Club at DePaul Prep has been around since the Gordon Tech days, while mostly blowing up in popularity last year. The E-Sports Club is held twice a week after school in room 156 on Wednesday for “Smash Ultimate” and Thursdays for “Overwatch” until at latest 5:30.
Games are held weekly during these meetings in a league named “Play VS” which is the largest league for student E-Sport players in Illinois. Head Moderator of the club David Prosser details this league as “any other sport season” being able to play against a different team every week while trying to maintain your club’s record for playoffs at the end of the semester.
These tournaments are played on a match system used to determine which team won that match. The teams compete head to head, usually having up to four people on the team specifically for Super Smash Bros. A single player from each team competes against each other in a best of five set which earns that team one point per won set.
The head to head ends once a team has been awarded three points, which is done through winning three different best of three sets. Games can be forced to overtime with the max amount of games being five played, however, players from each team can only play twice restricting one player from dominating any single match.
Currently Super Smash Bros is the most popular game of the club, with the club hosting three different teams ranging in skill for all types of players possibly wanting to join. Sophomore Derek Juergens, now one of the top players in the club, quotes how he “started really bad” his first year of the club but by the end of that year “started doing better and ended up getting moved up to varsity.” Detailing how inviting and welcoming the club was, he even stated that the club motto was that “if you have an interest in playing, we’ll help you learn the game.”
“It’s like a roller coaster, you’re not going to have fun and be able to experience it if you don’t get on” said Juergens when asked about the one thing he would tell students who seem interested about the E-Sports Club.
Along with the growth of skills this club provides students love this club because “of the culture and having a nice place to consistently come to hangout with people and destress” said Mr. Prosser. This club represents a place of peace for students. “It’s basically like if you go over to your friends house to hangout, you do stuff you want and you hangout and talk.” says Juergens
This club has formed a very tight knit community that values and respects each other no matter the skill. Senior Eesla Ortiz, a member on the varsity smash team reminisces on her days in the club noting how she is going to miss the “chaotic energy of the club” and her friends made from the club calling her closest friends “three peas in a pod.”
The Esports Club has been on the rise ever since Covid and there are no signs of it slowing down. Mr. Prosser encourages any students interested in esports events to stop in any time, saying “the door is always open!”
