Ready… Aim… Click – Mira Costa triumphs over Redondo Union in the schools’ first-ever esports championship
by Garth Meyer
Is it a sport, is it a game, is it an activity?
It is esports, and it has come to South Bay high schools, with Redondo Union and Mira Costa finishing their inaugural seasons April 6 in a showdown.
Six kids on each team, each behind a computer screen at the foot of the stage at the RUHS auditorium. Best of five games, or “maps” in this case, and major prizes for the winner.
The cheerleaders were there.
The match culminated a six-week season – mostly virtual – of round-robin play.
“It’s unlike any high school event you’ve ever been to,” said Alan Zack, CEO of Carrot Group, based in Redondo Beach, which contracted with the school districts to launch the season.
An all-freshmen Mira Costa team won the championship, 3-0 over Redondo.
The two squads in the final came from a list at each school. Mira Costa had 11 teams. Redondo Union had four, with a caveat that registration took place during semester finals week in February.
“Team-based video-game playing” is how Zack defined esports. “This is a workforce development program in disguise. There’s a correlation between gaming and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) careers. It’s all about collaboration. You really do need to know what the other kid is doing and talk to them.”
This year’s game was “Overwatch,” created by Blizzard Entertainment.
Each of its maps consist of different objectives, such as protecting a “tank,” to move it 50 yards while the other team is shooting at it, trying to stop it.
“It’s a first-person shooter (game), with 30 different characters,” said Zack. “When to use a spell, when to shoot, when to gang up.”
Equipment needed to run an official, in-person esports event is a minimum of 12 higher-end computers, each with a graphics card.
Middle school teams are up and running also – a Redondo younger-kids championship between Adams and Parras was played before the high school finals.
“Redondo’s going all-in,” Zack said.
Teams have jerseys, coaches, trophies and captains.
Ken “Mr. B” Brenan, computer science teacher at Mira Costa, is the Mustangs’ coach. Ben Wakefield, geometry and A.P. computer science teacher at RUHS, coaches the Sea Hawks.
The Redondo program was approved last year by Jens Brandt, the previous high school principal. Then the pandemic continued.
“There was a lot of wait and see,” said Zack.
The winning Mira Costa team, from left to right, Coach Ken Brenan, Bora Sepil, Harry Avrith, Kyle Johnson, Brady Sheih, Lance Wahlstedt, Lucas Valleca and MCHS Principal Karina Gerger. Photo courtesy of Carrot Group.
Today, Zack’s company works with nine school districts for esports.
“We dangle a prize for students who want to compete in our program,” he said, explaining the company name. “There are so many similarities between an engineer and a gamer.”
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has administered esports since 2019 as an “education-based activity”, for which the CIF provides a platform for member schools to compete.
“We had the mayor show up in Downey. It’s a thing,” Zack said.
While South Bay schools will “definitely” become part of CIF competition, Zack stated, participation will only be for one team at each school.
During Mira Costa’s and Redondo’s seven-week spring season Carrot hosted a four-night speaker series, featuring representatives from Disney Imagineering, Activision, SpaceX and Survios.
Championship night
The night of the championship arrived. Outside, across the RUHS grounds, swim practice went on, a lacrosse game and a baseball game.
In front of the auditorium, the Mira Costa drumline beckoned spectators. Equipment was hauled in and set up.
The lights dimmed.
“Let’s hear ‘em. Who has thundersticks?” Zack said during his introduction from the stage.
The modest crowd slapped the blow-up colored noisemakers.
Redondo Union Principal Anthony Bridi took the stage next, telling of how he has asked students how many games they have on their electronic devices, including their school-issued Chromebook. The numbers ranged from five or six, to dozens.
“It is about time (for esports),” Bridi said.
Zack noted the prizes on the line that night for the winners; a ring for each kid, a $500 game accessories package from Steelseries for each and a team limousine trip to Blizzard’s headquarters in Irvine. The winning school would also receive $1,000 in computer supplies.
Zack explained the “GG” seen on jerseys and other paraphernalia, which stands for “good game.”
“GG! Can I hear a GG?!”
“GG!” the crowd responded.
Zack talked more about the intention of the games.
“We need to get off this planet to save this planet,” he said, expounding on the need for more engineers, saying that by 2050, 10 billion people will live on Earth. STEAM kids will need to help decipher this future. Later, Zack would note that future scientists will have to figure out how to mine minerals from asteroids and the moon.
He then introduced the championship announcers, or “Casters”; one known as “FBI_tugboat” and the other “Will English IV.”
The two came from Chicago, and Las Vegas, respectively, to cover three Southern California esports events that week – at Compton Unified, Val Verde and Redondo.
Next were the RUHS junior varsity cheerleaders to the stage. They formed a line and canopy of shaking pom-poms – for each player to enter through the chute, introduced by name and class.
Mira Costa was first, followed by the big-bearded, ponytailed Mr. B.
RUHS was next, then the national anthem and it was gametime.
First more talk from the announcers.
And more.
A technical issue had caused a delay and the two filled the time at the microphone. They went to a short break and returned.
Players took seats in front of their monitors and put on the headphones.
Game One – map one – started. The crowd watched a large, onstage screen.
A figure jogged through a densely-developed, clean city, somewhere in Europe or European-influenced. Bam, shooting broke out, bam, bam, immediate shooting, tracers, explosions. Figures going down. A thick blue rifle in the foreground. Shots, tracers, explosions.
“One of the biggest kills so far,” called FBI_tugboat.
It quieted. Then two gold pistols appeared in the foreground – the perspective of a player. Bam, bam, blue tracer fire streaked across a street, more bodies down and a flip-and-catch of the pistols after a kill.
At the end, one gold pistol.
The first map was over.
“… It looks like a big melee if you aren’t familiar with it,” RUHS Coach Wakefield said. “These games are definitely going to take some public education.”
Each player on the six member teams had a different role, as a blocker, a healer and/or a scorer. At the auditorium that night, what the crowd saw on screen were cuts to any one of 12 points of view – the six members of each team.
Production members behind the curtain switched between points of view.
“To keep it interesting,” said Zack. “We have different cuts to keep it interesting.”
There were replays too, after a map/game concluded, with Mira Costa the victor in each.
“The guys really just knew what they were doing,” said Mustangs Coach Brenan. “Their strategy was in their headsets.”
The Redondo team of two seniors and five juniors took the loss in stride.
“The score didn’t look great, but the games were pretty close,” said RUHS captain Collin Fitzpatrick, his team using the moniker “Grass Touchers.”
The meaning, as explained by Coach Wakefield, is an inside joke on the suspicion that some online gamers never go outside.
Mira Costa was the “Sack Chasers.”
“It’s awesome the school is giving esports a level of legitimacy,” said Fitzpatrick. “It’s setting a precedent. It was pretty great. The amount of resources involved…”
He helped explain the game.
Two players on his team were “tank men,” who blocked, two were healers who restored teammates and two were “DPS” — Damage Per Second.
“Shooters,” Fitzpatrick said. “Basically their job is to kill other people, to shoot other people.”
One of the healer characters is known as Ana.
“When she shoots her teammates, it heals them,” Fitzpatrick said. “She shoots enemies and it lowers their H.P.”
H.P. is “Hit Points.”
Standard characters start with 200 H.P. When shot, some characters lose 10 H.P. per wound, others more.
“When you die, it’s not over,” Fitzpatrick said. “You keep dying and go back to re-spawn. You die, you wait 20 seconds, and you’re back.”
All the while, you work to push the payload cart, or “tank,” while the defenders try to stop it.
What is in the cart is unclear, Fitzpatrick said.
“The first year is always hard because people don’t really know what the game is,” Zack said, referring to the audience.
Earlier in the evening, Adams Middle School beat Parras Middle School 4-0 in a best-of-seven series. They played “Rocket League,” in which jumping, high-flying cars play a soccer-like game in an arena.
“(Championship night) was a lot of fun, of course there were some minor technical glitches,” said Brandt. “But overall it went really well, especially for our first run at it.”
The Redondo Union team in game play – from left to right, Baron Baker, Maximus Andrade, Collin Fitzpatrick, Asher Vollom, Justin Wyckoff (unseen) and Alyson Young (unseen). Photo courtesy of Carrot Group.
Origin
RUHS former principal Brandt was approached by Zack and Carrot Group to start esports in 2020.
The high school and middle schools had gaming clubs for many years, but not official school teams.
“There’s been constant interest in making competition formalized,” said Brandt. “Then Carrot came in and the rest is history, in many ways.”
An initial $75,000 investment from the Redondo Beach Education Foundation (RBEF) paid for coaches’ stipends, equipment, the production of the finals and the line of specific computers used in competition.
“Every year, we’ll have more contributions, hopefully,” Brandt said, noting that the aim is to expand the league to include Palos Verdes, Torrance and El Segundo.
The RBEF has already committed to funding next year’s program.
“We still need to find out how popular esports is going to be — that will drive the funding,” said Principal Bridi of a more long-term plan.
RBEF president Doris Donlou-Richmond was in the audience for RUHS vs. Mira Costa.
“That was where we got a lens for what it really meant,” she said. ”I thought it was exciting, and the students seemed to know all about it.”
The Saturday before, RUHS and Mira Costa met in the final four at a 10-school invitational in Downey.
The Mustangs freshmen won that, too.
“Kids love our prizes,” Zack said, relaying that winning players have told him the visits to video game publishers are the most valuable reward.
Equipment can be bought, but that kind of access cannot.
“Esports is drawing students that are not naturally athletic,” said Zack,who worked before for XPrize in Culver City – a company which offers incentive competitions to address world problems. He began his career at Disney marketing home video from 1990-95.
Mira Costa
The Mira Costa team received no education foundation money or district funding.
“We had zero budget this year. Some parents got us into the league,” Coach Brenan said. “This is just opening the door for later.”
Goals include letterman’s jackets and patches.
“To get people to understand this is actually a legitimate sport in society now,” said Brenan. “Or at least as we grow the sport we aim to go in that direction.”
Mira Costa Principal Karina Gerger helped administer the first year.
“She really has been a big support in this whole entire thing,” Brenan said.
Kids used their own computers this first season.
“I was very new to this. Other than knowing that it exists,” Principal Gerger said.
Looking to the future, no arrangements have yet been made for Mira Costa.
“It would be considered a sport, just like all the other sports on campus,” Gerger said, adding that as esports gets more established, a booster club would form.
She talked of the possibility of a dedicated room at the high school, with all the equipment, for kids to play in the same place.
“I need to learn more,” Gerger said.
A middle school program is not yet in development.
“Right now we’re just focused at the high school level,” Gerger said. “The starting point will be at high school.”
A screenshot of Sombra in “Overwatch,” one of more than 30 characters students may choose to inhabit within the game. Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.
Foals
Brenan, himself a gamer, talked about esports being around since the early 1980s – arcade game competitions such as for Asteroids, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong.
The Mira Costa program began during a lunchtime meeting, after which teams self-assembled; groups of friends coming forward to say ‘we want to be a team.’ Backup kids were added to the mix.
Mira Costa’s in-house competition ended with a three-way tie for first. One team bowed out after realizing it would not be able to field enough kids if they advanced to the final against RUHS.
“When the league scheduled it, they didn’t realize we’d be on spring break,” said Brenan.
So two teams remained. They faced off and the Sack Chasers won, to represent MCHS.
“Sacks of gold,” said Brenan, on the significance of the name. “Chasing sacks of gold.”
After the championships, former RUHS principal Brandt liked what he saw.
“The two best things about this, is that it’s competitive and collaborative, under a supervised environment, of course, and it’s offering access to industry professionals,” Brandt said. “We’ve got Silicon Beach right up the road in Playa Vista.”
He serves now as the Redondo school district’s principal of alternative education and director of instructional support.
Carrot Group chose the game for this year’s competition.
“‘Overwatch’ is usually high-school friendly, because it is not too violent,” Zack said.
Next year’s game is “Valorant”- a “5 v. 5 character-based tactical shooter” as described by the makers. The “Arsenal Page” has 17 realistic-looking guns to choose from.
“We can turn down some of the features in the game,” Zack said. “We can turn off blood, and slow-motion dying. Our view is kids are going to play it. But we watch it all, we monitor chat, there’s no bullying. Our means is a much safer environment to learn the game than playing at home.”
Coach Wakefield
Three years ago, students in Ben Wakefield’s A.P. Computer Science class at Redondo Union approached him about starting a school esports team. Wakefield was already a faculty advisor for some of the campus clubs.
“It can have the same energy, the same school spirit, competitiveness and structure of traditional sports,” Wakefield said. “‘Overwatch’ has rear, middle and forward players, similar to soccer.”
The game is rated TEEN, as is Valorant.
“Valorant is more similar to reality,” Wakefield said. “It’s a much more modern game than Overwatch. How the school and everything is going to cope with that, I’m not sure. At some point it gets awkward to have kids shooting each other online.”
He acknowledged detractors of violent video games’, and their concern that the games may lure a mentally-ill kid over the edge, though no studies have proven it.
“That is something that we all look out for as teachers, signs of kids who may be in trouble. As we’ve seen, most of the school shooters have been socially-isolated. We aim to get kids to participate in at least one club or activity. Kids have an outlet when they play online. What we don’t see is how many kids were turned away from that (violence) because they had other outlets? For the socially-withdrawn, online games give them a community.”
Any concern about the games from Mira Costa?
“Yes, a little bit, at the beginning,” said Principal Gerger. “But it’s almost a Disney version of what you’d be fearful of students playing.”
Postseason
While the official Redondo esports season is over, Fitzpatrick’s school club – playing “Valorant” – continues fielding a varsity and a J.V. team in competition against 550 other teams online.
Fitzpatrick played on the rugby team at RUHS in his four years of high school. A teammate played on the football team and another, Alyson Young, was on the Sea Hawks girls flag football team this winter.
Fitzpatrick, a senior, now deciding between Oregon State and San Jose State for college, plans to major in computer science. ER