Academic Major: Music Education
Title: Supporting Esports in High Schools
I plan to create guidelines for running esports in a high school setting, focusing on health and wellness, to encourage developing high school programs. I will create an outline for fitness and training, ergonomics, team building, program promotion, and recruitment- all the things that get a new program off the ground, or strengthen a current one. Esports is a growing field that opens the door for non-traditional athletes, and helps provide a safe haven for many (For example, see quotes from Potsdam Esports athletes attached).
Many high schools already have esports clubs, and competitions are being supported through organizations such as the High School Esports League, but esports is not an officially recognized high school sport. Due to this, there are no formal guidelines for athlete wellness, or how to best facilitate improvement. There is some research into wellness, but as it stands right now, you need extensive experience in esports in order to start, or maintain, a high school team- particularly when it comes to practicing or coaching during matches.
I will interview high school and collegiate sports coaches, visit esports facilities, attend conferences, and examine our own esports club in order to tackle different aspects of athlete health and practicing routines. This will let me create a plan for esports athlete health and training that can easily be adopted by schools for their own programs, based on existing health and wellness guidelines such as those created by Tanya Hewitt (see attached), and what I discover through this project. At the end of the project I will share my outlines openly with different high schools who may be interested in esports, and help them begin their programs.
Esports is a very new field. Because of this, there is little to no support at most institutions, including our own. There aren't classes on esports wellness, training, etc., and most training programs for esports are closely guarded secrets. This type of information isn't available to me at Potsdam, and it is quite far from the classes of my Music Education and Psychology majors.