Catching up with Hornets esports
- dominickmatarese8
- May 17, 2023
- 6 min read
After the SUNY Broome esports team ended their Overwatch season with a close 3-1 win against Fort Scott Community College, the Fulcrum sat down with the team to reflect on how the Fall 2020 semester had gone for them.
Players joined the team for many reasons, including Freshmen Benjamin Saunders who wanted to find purpose on campus beyond attending classes.
“This is the only way i could get a social experience and not feel like campus was a void place. I’d go in there and just leave and I’d feel hollow, and now I have purpose,” said Saunders.
“For me, the reason I joined was because I want to see Esports become more prominent as a sport just in all colleges, and by getting it going in even a community college like this we’re already having it in smaller areas," said Sophomore Michael Willard. "And it’s fun, it’s Overwatch, it’s a game that we all enjoy and can play together and it’s a great social experience.”
Head Esports Coach Nigel Deakin believes esports will have a significant impact on campus.
“I think that it’s a really good move to have an Esports team at any college, only because that is one of the main directions that sports is headed towards, especially during a period like this where people aren’t allowed to go to actual sporting events,” said Deakin
Deakin also believes esports brings a richer experience to campus, and can help students learn team building and communication skills.
“It helps build up another community that can attract students, and can make students that are already here have an interest in some extracurriculars, and if they happen to join the team they can learn a lot from it,” said Deakin.
The current team's culture extends beyond the gameplay, and the team has strong camaraderie.
“Being funny seems to be a big theme with us and I highly appreciate that. We are very friendly with each other, everyone gets along very fast I would say," Saunders said. "When I first joined the team I was scared shitless of everybody on the team, and now I have the privilege to say they’re my friends.”
Deakin said the team’s attitude is usually positive even in the face of adversity.
“When we win, it’s usually very jovial, everyone's having a great time, we’re throwing out the memes," Deakin said. "When we lose it’s a little more solemn but we try to keep the team positive enough to learn from whatever happened.”
He said after a bad loss the team frequently will play games with each other as different heroes (characters in Overwatch) than they normally play to help mix things up and take their mind off of it.
After their final match of the season players said they felt the team had improved significantly.
“Poggers dude! We’ve improved so much, you don’t even know!” Said Team Captain Linares Lynette. “We’ve improved very much, I think everyone has just been playing better and better every time.”
Lynette said a goal for the team in the Spring 2020 semester is to make the NCJAAE playoffs.
Deakin said he hoped to recruit more student athletes, and hopefully get enough players to expand into other games, but believed that the team would continue to focus on Overwatch. He hoped the relaxed eligibility requirements under the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) meant that they would see both new faces, and returning players from previous semester.
“We would love to put SUNY Broome on the map as a school that’s recognized for its Esports program," Deakin said. "That's a larger goal that we have and I think that this semester has been a really great first step into that world.”
Deakin and Associate Coach Jeremy Isabella feel their role is less to coach the team on specific gameplay strategy, than it is to foster a positive environment.
“Our roles as coaches is to make sure they can work together, focus on things that we see in game that they might need to either improve on or just focus on a little bit more to just build up a little more confidence in it," Deakin said. "We just want to make sure that they are ready to play games with each other and with other schools. We would love for them to win but we want them more to just feel successful and feel like part of a team”
Deakin said that team meetings occurring online because of the COVID-19 pandemic creates a different dynamic than meeting in person.
“It was like a morale change. Playing all online has made it more difficult for us to have some of the synergies because I don’t think a lot of our team knows each other that well compared to when we were all meeting together the team they knew each other,” Deakin said.
Associate Coach Jeremy Isabella agreed that the pandemic had affected team bonding.
“I think meeting in person allows for much more connection between the players," Isabella said. "Just something about being in the same room together and seeing each other and just hanging out with each other in between the games. I think it builds more of a comradery”
Lynette was the only returning player from the previous semester.
The team was provided jerseys through the Athletics Department at the end of the Spring 2019 semester, but were not able to distribute them this semester due to the pandemic.
This semester is the first with the team as a member of NJCAA Esports which is the governing association of community college, state college and junior college athletics throughout the United States.
The NJCAA coordinates what teams play against each other in the regular season, and how playoffs work. As a member of the NJCAA, the team is able to play against schools from around the country.
Deakin said they competed against schools from many other states such as Illinois, Idaho, and Michigan. Deakin and the players perceived a discrepancy in the skill levels of teams they faced this season.
“Every game that we’ve played has either been a 3-0 for or against us,” Deakin said. “It was either we couldn’t do anything to stop them, or we were unstoppable."
Players remarked after their final match against FSCC that it was the closest they had played all season, which was satisfying for them.
SUNY Broome's team roster was slimmed down this semester due to NJCAA restrictions. Deakin said the team ran into hiccups because the NCJAAE's eligibility requirements say that a player must have passed 12 credit hours in the previous full time semester, and must be enrolled in 12 credit hours for the current semester.
For the spring 2020 semester however, the NJCAA has lowered the eligibility requirements to 6 credits for the previous semester, and 6 credits for the current semester. Deakin said he suspected this to allow some returning faces to compete with the team in the spring.
The SUNY Broome Esports team offers other games such as Rocket League, Madden, and Super Smash Bros, but due to the size of the team they were not able to compete in these games and instead opted to focus solely on Overwatch.
The NJCAAE also offers games like Call of Duty, Valorant, Counter Strike, and Rainbow Six Siege. However SUNY Broome administration came to an agreement with the team that they would not play these games to avoid promoting real world violence.
“We just want to make sure that we’re not promoting anything the school doesn’t support, and the idea of supporting real world violence is really not what SUNY Broome wants to do,” said Deakin. “We had a lot of students that were kind of upset about that, understandably, because those were the games they wanted to play.”
The team was provided with various parts used to assemble their computers in the Spring 2019 semester, which are kept in the Esports Arena room in the Business Building on campus. Deakin said that thankfully the players were already avid gamers so everyone on the team had computers which could run Overwatch, but that some players had internet issues.
Esports at SUNY Broome began as a club before becoming an official part of the athletics department in the spring 2019 semester. However, Deakin said they weren’t able to keep the club active for the fall 2020 semester, and said it was due to not being able to meet in person. Previously the club had weekly meeting times where people could hang out and play games, which was nixed after the COVID-19 pandemic came to the area. He is hoping to bring the club back to life when campus activity is back to normal.
The team streams all of their matches against other schools on the streaming service Twitch.
“We usually have some very enthusiastic fans who are coming out there to show their support for the hornets, and cheer on their favorite players, so we like to see that,” said Deakin.
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