PIERRE — A pilot season for e-sports in South Dakota is helping high schools work out the technical kinks as well as building a foundation of mentors for the future.
The South Dakota High School Activities board of directors this week heard that during an update on the first-ever season for e-sports, short for electronic sports, from Kaleb Dschaak, CEO of Fenworks. The company was chosen to assist the state’s school activities oversight panel explore the implementation of e-sports programming, which includes virtual competitions in Chess, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Super Smash Brothers. Drone racing is also offered by Fenworks.
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Dschaak told the board there are 20 schools participating in the e-sports pilot season with 217 students competing in online games.
“We’ve really had a good launch to the season,” Dschaak said.
There were originally 24 schools in the pilot season, he said, but technical problems at four schools forced them to drop out of the pilot program. He hopes to have those problems worked out by the next school year when e-sports starts its first official season.
The 20 teams participating all have coaches, known in e-sports as general managers.
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