Minot State University’s Esports program is in the game.

Esports is short for electronic sports and is the fastest-growing sport worldwide. Teams of gamers are pitted against each other to determine who is the best in competitive esports competitions.

MSU’s Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Ethan Valentine was vital in launching the university’s esports program. The games are all played online, with MSU’s team competing against other collegiate teams across the United States.

“We are both an MSU program and a club; that was actually part of the list of expectations from our Strategic Planning team,” said Valentine. “In that sense, we operate as a varsity program with a club attached as a community and a JV/academy set of teams. Currently, we compete via NECC, the National Esports Collegiate Conference. That includes schools from across the U.S., including Dickinson State, University of Jamestown and the University of North Dakota, among other in-state schools.”

The games played during competitions reach across different genres in the video gaming world. The team competes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Valorant; both are first-person shooters. The goal of a first-person shooter is to work together as a team and be the last team standing. A first-person shooter is based on gun and other weapon-based combat and is fast-paced. In first-person gaming, the player sees through the eyes of their character.

The fast-paced action of first-person shooters is not the only game played in collegiate esports; they also compete in League of Legends. Both types of games require intricate teamwork; League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game. Players control a character with unique abilities on a defined battlefield with the characters’ abilities improving throughout the game, contributing to the overall team strategy. The League of Legends World Championships in 2023 were watched by 6.4 million viewers worldwide.

They also played Rocket League — imagine soccer played in rocket-powered cars — and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a fighting game featuring popular characters from Nintendo. Next year, the program will replace Call of Duty with Fortnite, an immensely popular third-person shooter, and add chess.

Valentine, an experienced gamer, learned a humbling lesson while playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (SSBU) at an MSU Esports event.

“I remember thinking I was pretty good at SSBU, and then at one of our events, someone started talking about how you can track individual frame data to predict and avoid things,” said Valentine. “I ended up playing a match against them that day, and I don’t think I managed to land a hit the entire time! It’s humbling, but also fun to see. I’m always glad when we’re able to build those opportunities.”

Visually tracking frame data in a video game happens in a matter of milliseconds, and to respond and hit the appropriate sequence of buttons, the response time for that esports athlete is practically instantaneous.

Minot State’s Esports Club is not the first club Valentine has had a hand in forming. Known as “the games person” for his experience in video games, a group of students approached Valentine about forming an esports team at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he was a faculty member.

“I was a faculty member at Kirkwood — in their closest equivalent to Minot State’s tenure track (Iowa community colleges don’t technically have tenure, but their regular faculty lines function similarly under a different name). I started as faculty at Kirkwood while I was still a graduate student at the University of Iowa. Kirkwood requires that faculty have at least a master’s degree, which I already had when I was finishing up my Ph. D,” said Valentine. “As part of that role at Kirkwood, I helped to lead the development of the Kirkwood Esports Club (KEC), which became the largest student organization on campus during my time there. KEC is still going strong since I left, with one of my former colleagues (Quinten Kilborn) leading the club.”

During his job interview with MSU, Valentine asked if there might be interest in starting an esports program at the university. He interviewed with the Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Laurie Geller.

“I became interested in esports when a faculty member on an academic visioning committee mentioned it in December 2018. My colleague, Bill Harbort, with whom I organize MSU NOTSTOCK, started researching esports, and we were blown away by its popularity and the massive size of the industry,” said Geller. “We saw it as an opportunity to attract, engage, and retain another group of students and to develop academic programs around the esports industry. Bill and I organized a committee and started learning more about esports and the resources needed to organize a team. By April 2019, we made a formal budget request for esports equipment, personnel, and operating. Our request didn’t get funded, but we didn’t give up.”

Valentine’s hiring helped Harbort, and Geller’s proposal become a reality.

“COVID happened and that slowed down the process, but we had a stroke of good fortune during spring 2021; we hired Ethan as a new psychology faculty member. Ethan used his experience as a faculty advisor to an esports club at a previous university to hit the ground running when he started in August,” said Geller. “By November 2021 he had an official MSU esports club organized and was hosting events. He then started to build funding, while building participation and student success at competitions. First, he got a student fee approved starting in 2022-2023, then a small, appropriated budget for 2023-2024, and now he has an esports room in the newly renovated Hartnett Hall with funding to hire a coach and more for 2024-2025. Ethan, with the help of the students, has put in long hours to make this happen. MSU is lucky to have him, and I am excited to see the program blossom and provide opportunities for students.”

The club started small with eight esports athletes in the spring of 2022. The esports held a gathering during the fall of 2022 MSU annual hall crawl welcome week with ninety-eight students showing up to participate. The club has approximately 150 people using its esports Discord channel.

Before the renovations of Harnett Hall, the MSU Esports team members competed online from their homes. Soon they will have their dedicated area on the first floor of Harnett Hall. The space was previously used for storage.

“I know we’ve had concerns that we don’t want to take up space,” said Valentine. “We don’t want to take funding from others on campus.”

Once the esports area is fully set up, it will have 16 desktop computers and monitors lining the walls for PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch gaming.

The esports area gives participants a place to gather and play together. It will also decrease the latency rate, or lag time, between computers and the university’s servers. In esports, even a fraction of a second of lag time can be the difference between victory and defeat. The area will be fully ADA-compliant, with adjustable desks that will make it accessible to everyone.

Valentine is not alone in bringing the MSU esports program to life, with a litany of students volunteering countless hours to make the program a success.

“On the student side, our two primary leaders this year have been Sawyer Goodwin and Briana Romfo. Additional shoutouts for this year to Blake Guttormson, Reid Tarbox, Kaden Byker, Ryan Delichte, and Brady Dutcher for their volunteer hours,” said Valentine. “A lot of credit goes to Emily Couse as well – she’s a Minot State grad now attending graduate school in optometry, but she was the first student president of the esports club when it started in 2022.”

The support behind the esports program doesn’t end with just the names listed. Many volunteers help run events, are part of club leadership, and contribute to high-level play. A complete list of everyone who has volunteered to help build the program includes more than 50 people.

However, some volunteers graduate in May 2024, so Valentine is trying to persuade the administration to hire two full-time esports coaches.

The university’s administration has responded by recently advertising to hire a full-time esports coach and adding one graduate assistant. Valentine wants to continue to serve as an administrative contact for esports once the coaching vacancy is filled. After all, he is “the games person.”

The MSU Beavers’ future in esports is bright, and they will be at the forefront of the fastest-growing sport globally.