Esports, competitive online gaming, is one of the newest ideas to come to Gibson Southern. New computer science teacher Ryan Osborn is looking to be the head of the esports team that is potentially coming to the school.

“When I was interviewed, this was brought up,” Osborn said. “They asked me if I would be interested in something like this … I’m all-in on this kind of stuff, so I was excited to hear that this is a possibility.”

Currently a percentage of the student body is interested in having or joining an esports team.

“It’s something new, and I’ve always enjoyed video games,” sophomore Elijah Rybachek said. “I enjoy playing them competitively, so joining an esports team and actually having people to practice with and play with would be a cool experience.”

The first step of starting an esports team was gauging the student body’s interest. Somewhere between 30 to 40 students have said they want to be a part of the team. Osborn plans on having practices Mondays and Wednesdays after school, which may change based on the number of players. If there are 40 players, then the group would be split.

The computers in the computer lab would have to be replaced. Currently Osborn is looking at new equipment: gaming PCs, gaming monitors and new gaming computer mouses. The cost of this would total thousands of dollars. Some students think this money could go to a better cause.

“I feel as though the Gibson Southern softball field needs some of those funds,” senior Sydney Long said. “Right now we are without a fence and coach [Gary] May is not allowed to fix the fence in the way he needs to to make it the best looking field. He wants to make sure that everybody is safe, instead we get patchwork because they don’t want to fix it.”

Osborn plans on having the gamers play “Rocket League,” “Fortnite,” “Apex Legends” and “Halo.” The team does have to receive permission from Principal Jon Adams for some of the mature rated games that they want to play.

“[Gaming] is a way to entertain and not everybody is a ‘Let’s go play football!’ person or a ‘Let’s go run around the track!’ or ‘I wanna play soccer!’” Osborn said. “Some people are just really into video games, and I’m one of those people.”