The esports team needs to find more players

The Riverhawks Esports team recruits students to compete on teams that play Overwatch 2 and League of Legends in tournaments.

According to head coach Conway Johnson, the team is short on Overwatch 2 players and wants to recruit more players.

Johnson reported that he had difficulty finding new players because students didn’t know anything about esports.

The college made esports a part of AACC Athletics in February 2022. The squad consists of nine players. The League of Legends team has enough players, but since there are only four members

The Overwatch 2 team – and five are required – requires both teams to play off campus, according to Johnson.

“NJCAA rules allow faculty and staff to fill positions on teams for non-university students,” Johnson said. “So for the Overwatch team, I’m filling about a fifth spot until we find a tenth player to fill that final Overwatch role.”

Johnson looks for members who “put in the time and effort to improve.”

“We don’t worry nearly as much about what skill level people have,” Johnson said. “We had people who were relatively new to the world of gaming and get them to play at a competitive level over the course of a semester.”

Johnson added: “The most important thing is just attitude.”

Players can head to CALT Room 215 to practice their gameplay with esports players in an open lab.

Johnson said the main purpose of Open Labs is to promote esports.

“We’ve seen an uptick in team recruiting because people are coming in, playing, getting comfortable and saying, ‘That’s what I want to do,'” Johnson said.

Neel Howard, an Overwatch 2 player, said not having enough members “really sucks.”