Esports Club at Crownover Middle School

My name is Matthew Cline and I am a 6th grade science teacher as well as the Esports club coach at Crownover Middle School. Esports in Denton is designed to be inclusive and create a place for students to belong and feel connected to their campus and peers. I still remember the day I got my Nintendo and the first time my friends and I got a hold of NBA Jam on the Sega Genesis.

We started the Esports club for the 22-23 school year and had an amazing time. For the record, I still know how to clean up at Mario Kart and beat most of the kids. We had a couple of district tournaments and even some smaller ones against our neighbor schools at Harpool. Shout out to Titus for bringing home 1st and 2nd place trophies and the other members, David, Alexander, and Eli for representing our school at district tournaments.

Our High schools are growing fast with new Esports labs and the goal is to one day have the same capabilities at our middle schools (it is probably going to be a while on that though). I have had a lot of interest from new students about joining for the upcoming school year, plus my students who were in the club last year, which creates a couple of issues -- Wifi, space, controllers, and consoles. We do not have wifi to play on at the middle school level so everything is played offline. This makes it difficult for students to play against each other on games like Rocket League. We will easily have at least 30 students this year and hopefully I can get another teacher/helper to add even more students in the future. Students are allowed to bring their Switches but not everyone has that capability nor do we want any personal devices getting scratched or accidentally broken.

With all that being said, every last dollar will go to funding controllers, consoles, and monitors for the students to play on. The main games we run are Super Smash Bros and Rocket League. We also have Mario Kart, Super Mario Strikers and some others are getting approval through the district this year. The main district tournaments we play are Super Smash Bros and hopefully, we'll be adding a Rocket League tournament this year.

Here is the estimate of what the money will be going to:

Used PS5 (students will use this for 1v1 in Rocket League - $300-$400

Monitor to run Rocket League off the ps5 at full settings -$200

Super Smash Bros Game for the Switch x3- $150

3 Used Nintendo Switches - $600-$800

10 gaming controllers - $250

Used TV's for the switches - I have a Promethean board in my classroom for the other switch -$200

That brings the total estimate to around $1,900. Any extra money left over after taxes and processing fees will directly go to worn-down controllers or cords over time.

I truly appreciate any donations to our club. This will easily set us up for years to come as we grow Esports in Denton ISD. I am very excited to see where things go and what kind of opportunities will become available for our students. There are all kinds of prizes, scholarships, and amazing opportunities that students can get as we continue to move forward. Guyer High School has an awesome Rocket League team as well as video and shout-casting people. UNT has its own Esports team and opportunities for scholarships. We are at the ground-level beginning stages, but I know our students (and myself) will greatly appreciate the help getting started!

Here is the link to our Instagram page - Insta

Here is the link to our school website - Website