By Nickie Hayes
Students looking for a way to stay involved from the dorms should look to SUNY Plattsburgh Recreation, because they are holding a campus wide ESports Tournament. The games available to participate in are FIFA 20, Madden 21, NBA 2K20, NHL 20 and Rocket League.
COVID-19 has definitely taken a toll on the variety of activities SUNY Plattsburgh has to offer. However, this has not stopped the school from providing students with alternatives.
Max Tompkins, a senior triple major in accounting, management and information systems and business administration, and a minor in business analytics, has been given the opportunity by Karen Waterbury, the director of Recreation and Club Sports, to oversee the ESports Tournament.
Tompkins has been working in the SUNY Plattsburgh Recreation office since his freshman year.
Imleague.com is the website allowing him to create the ESports tournament. It allows Max to connect with the student participants using their Plattsburgh email accounts.
Tompkins said Waterbury chose this activity because she was inspired by what SUNY Oswego was providing for its students. Thus, leading to the decision to create a regular five week season tournament.
“Oswego was having two day tournaments, and that sounded like a good idea,” Tompkins said.“I know a lot of people who play NBA 2K, FIFA, and stuff like that.”
He thought that those students would be interested in playing one best-of-three game per week like how they used to do three-versus-three games in the basketball gym. His goal was to provide freshmen, along with all the other students at SUNY Plattsburgh with some competitive natured games and interaction between students.
“I rather have that, then have another 43 students suspended to go to a beach party,” Tompkins said.
Tomkins said that FIFA 20, Madden 21, NBA 2K20, NHL 20 and Rocket League aligned best with the Plattsburgh Recreation because they are based on the traditional sports held in the fall semester. He also stated that there could be an extension for sign up dates.
The start dates for each game tournament were Monday for FIFA 20, Tuesday for Madden 21, Wednesday, for NBA 2K20 and Rocket League and Thursday for NHL 20. Tompkins said that there are bracketed finals after the regular five seasons.
“I am going to figure out how to do the playoffs, and it is not set in stone, just because of bracket sizing,” Tompkins said.
So, if students do not do as well in the regular five seasons, there is still an opportunity for the players to get into the finals. There are nine leagues between the five games, and nine people will be taking home the champion shirts, which is the prize for the playoff winners.
The use of either Xbox or PlayStation is always a hot-button topic within the community. For the students at Plattsburgh, Tompkins said the PlayStation is going to be the more popular console used by the participants.
There will be something different for every student, even through the madness of COVID-19
