SHS eSports club plays to benefit children

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SANDPOINT — Sacred Heart's children program got boost thanks to Sandpoint High School eSports program's first Extra Life Game Day event.

Held Nov. 6, the event featured everything from video games and virtual reality to a cornhole tournament and card games. It's the first time that the SHS club has taken part in Extra Life's partnership with the Children's Miracle Hospital Network, of which Sacred Heart is part of, Dalton Hawkins, SHS esport advisor and coach, said.

"For maybe older individuals, you might think of this as like a dance-a-thon or a walkathon type thing," Hawkins said. "The big idea is that we fundraise money and stuff like that by playing games for a couple of hours to help others."

While some clubs seek out sponsors, Hawkins said the SHS club opted to seek donations and hold a game day, inviting the community to join them in playing a variety of games. The goal was to have fun while raising money to help others, something club members quickly got on board with.

Hawkins said he saw a posting about the Extra Life Game Day events on a board, adding it clicked with advice from his dad, that you need to give back to your community.

"Whenever my dad's telling me that I need to do a fundraiser for like, I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, how do I do a pasta feed. I don't even know where to start with something like that," Hawkins said, adding with a laugh, "Is it 'I've got a bunch of pasta, and I got some white sauce, and let's go?'

"I was like, alright, let's play to my strengths. And my strengths are video gaming, and, you know, some board games and Dungeons & Dragons and stuff like that."

The club had a good response to its fundraiser, with many of those turning out to play donating over the entry fee for the event. The way the club looked at it was that every little bit that they raised was that much more than could go toward the children's hospital.

The club tried to offer a wide variety of games and a local cornhole group pitched in as well, and donated a portion of what they raised to the SHS eSports club's drive as well, Hawkins said.

"The idea is just to play games and that's the whole thing," he said. "It's game day. So you know, if you're playing basketball, game day, if you're playing cornhole, game day, if you're playing a video game, game day, if you're playing, you know, a card game, game day. It's all just focused on let's have some fun while we're doing a little bit of fundraising."

The club was on board from the start when he broached the idea, said Hawkins, who teaches math, computer science and science at the high school. While fundraising for their own needs typically involves something like running the concessions stand, the game day event is the club's first effort dedicated to helping others.

"This, I think is a little bit more," Hawkins said. "It's a step away in that we're not trying to help ourselves but we're trying to help the community. And so I had quite a few kids just say, 'That's a good thing for us to do' and they had the same mindset of like, if we raised $10, that was $10, more than we had before, and we're donating it. And so is there is that attitude of just, yeah, let's give back somehow."

While eSports are considered a club in Idaho and not a team, Hawkins brings a team concept to the club. They work out and go running as well as meeting to play games and share gaming tips.

Helping out this year was the support of Ting Internet, which funded the cost of the club's athletes to take part in competitions. The school also helps out by offering club space and computers for the e-athletes to compete on.

"But most of the things that we do, we have to self fund for and I have quite a few kids that the normal season cost of $40 is a lot of money," Hawkins said, adding that all of the support is appreciated and goes a long way — both for helping the club grow and giving the kids with that interest a place to go.

While the SHS eSports club is limited to SHS students and homeschool students in the Lake Pend Oreille School District, Hawkins is working on a club at the middle school and is supportive of similar clubs at Forrest Bird Charter School, Lake Pend Oreille High School and Clark Fork High School.

There are about 20 kids in the club, now in its fifth year. While there was a bit of a drop when he added the running and weight training this year, Hawkins said interest has been steady since the beginning. He likes that the club gives kids who might not be a traditional athlete a place to go and share a common interest. With the pandemic, eSports has exploded in popularity with everyone from pro athletes to Formula 1 drivers jumping to the field. When League of Legends held its world finals, it attracted more viewers than every sports with the exception of the Super Bowl.

"There was a really big explosion in eSports, in 2020, when the pandemic shut everything down, when all the teams shut down," Hawkins said. "With all of that going on, people were still able to do eSports and they were able to do it from home."

With that boom in popularity, colleges are offering scholarships for esport athletes, with Boise State University, Washington State and the University of Idaho all of which either have or are starting eSports programs. Why not, he said, connect local students with those scholarship opportunities.

"If they can get some scholarship money to go to school and do that then that's great, it's awesome," he said. "And if it's doing something they like awesome."

He also wants to give kids that are into gaming a place to go.

"I'm trying to get kids that they might not have something," he added. "Maybe they're not a traditional sport athlete. Maybe they're not into these specific games. Okay, then let's get you something that you can interact with. And eSports can do that."

With eSports, the club can compete with anyone anywhere in the country, from just down the highway to across the country right from Sandpoint High School. And the team is having success — both in competitions and in being offered scholarships, Hawkins said.

"What's really cool about kind of eSports, I think a lot of reason of why it's taking off, is everyone has the same advantage, in that you're playing on literally the same exact field," he said.

Where in traditional sports, there is a definite home field advantage and an away field disadvantage, that isn't the case with eSports, added Hawkins.

"So the great thing about eSports is it's all digital," he said. "So we're all playing on the same field, and everyone gets to practice on the same field. I mean, we're having that home field advantage. There is no home field advantage. There's also no away disadvantage and that's kind of cool about that."

It all, Hawkins said, comes down to your skills and your ability and how well you know the mechanics of the game.