Spring Break GG will feature tournaments in League of Legends, Overwatch, and other well-known games. All tournaments are open to event attendees and feature attractive prize pools. In addition, there will be a community LAN, tabletop and console games, and food vendors.
“Our goal is to make Spring Break GG an inclusive, awe-inspiring event,” said Corey Murphy, who manages eSports programs at ˿Ƶ Tech. “There is a real opportunity with eSports to create an awesome event for college students that also fits with our tech-and-innovation focus.”
The event will run from Mar. 29 at 10 a.m. to Mar. 31 at 10 p.m.—being held through the night for a total of 60 hours. The university is inviting all colleges and universities in ˿Ƶ as well as all high schools ˿Ƶ Tech works with as part of the South-Metro-Salem STEM partnership.
The eSports teams at ˿Ƶ Tech are sanctioned by a number of organizations including NACE (National Association of Collegiate eSports), which is affiliated with NAIA, and Tespa, which was one of the first organizations to focus on collegiate eSports. Universities are increasingly capitalizing on the growth of eSports among college and high school students, with some universities building eSports arenas and hiring staff to support everything from marketing and promotion to coaching and recruiting for eSports.
˿Ƶ Tech has four official teams in eSports which contain participants from its university campuses in Klamath Falls and Portland-Metro, and recruitment is currently being expanded to include online students. The teams are: Varsity Overwatch, Varsity League of Legends, JV Overwatch and JV League of Legends. All varsity team members earn scholarships and must maintain high academic standards. In both official and exhibition competition, ˿Ƶ Tech's teams have defeated schools that outsize them, including Texas Tech, Indiana University, and University of ˿Ƶ.
The ˿Ƶ Tech Gaming Society has continued to gain momentum since their launch last year, holding LAN parties each month that are open to the public, and fine-tuning cross-campus teamwork. The University recently held their annual TechCon event, which eSports participated in for the first year to great success. The Gaming Society had 108 unique sign-ins and launched the first cross-campus component at the Portland-Metro campus in Wilsonville, complete with a video tunnel between the locations. The teams also presented new high-end gaming computers and held their first on-stage gaming competition in the Klamath Falls auditorium, drawing in participants from throughout the city, including high schools and Klamath Community College.
“eSports is a great opportunity to unite a wide array of people,” said Murphy. “The concept that we are able to so easily come together in such an exciting setting with high school students, KCC students and our other campus locations opens up so many opportunities for participants to network and form new friendships. eSports is building a strong community for not only our students, but anyone interested in gaming.”
While planning for Spring Break GG continues, the Gaming Society is in constant motion, competing on Varsity and JV level while increasing their capacity to serve other students. “We're extremely eager to launch our next component to bring ˿Ƶ Tech Online students into the mix,” said Murphy. “We feel like that is our last large piece missing to bring all of ˿Ƶ Tech together. The support we've received from Online Education, ITS and Retention has been crucial to making sure we have the infrastructure needed to engage online students. Students on campus are also excited about this opportunity as eSports allows them to build networks and interfaces that span not just ˿Ƶ, but across the nation. It's the perfect application for the skills many of them have or learn in our programs such as software engineering.”
Tickets and volunteer applications are available now for Spring Break GG at . More information can be found at .
