LLCC adds esports to sports catalog

With the men’s soccer team being cut, Lincoln Land will be adding an esports team in the fall of 2020. Lincoln Land has found their esports coach Dalton McGhiey. He has coached high school esports for all of the district 186 high schools.

400 people tried out for the team at the high school level, but McGhiey knows that the college team won’t have the same amount of interest as the high school team, though he doesn’t think that will hurt the team’s success. “That being said, the people we have trying out for us are going to be really hardcore at their particular games and I’m confident our kids will be able to compete with almost anyone we run into. We’re going to draw the kind of people that buy into a culture of excellence both in the classroom and in game.”

The 3 games that will be played in the fall of 2020 are Rocket League, Madden 19, and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Those games were decided on by the NJCAA for all junior colleges around the country.

I asked McGhiey how he started coaching esports. “I’ve been playing video games my whole life. I brought up the idea of having an esports team at Southeast High School when I student-taught there in the fall of 2018. When I took a full-time job teaching at Lanphier High school in the spring of 2019, I merged Southeast and Lanphier into one team. In the fall of 2019, we added Springfield High School to the mix and with all three District 186 public schools working together, we rebranded the team the “Springfield Capitols.” It was the success and proximity of that team that put me on Lincoln Land’s radar for the coaching job and I gladly accepted the position when I saw how strongly LLCC was going to support their esports program. I don’t believe in doing something unless it’s being done right and LLCC is doing it right.”

If you want to read more about coach McGhiey, you can click here.

Good Luck to the Loggers Esports team starting this Fall.