The Fort Stockton Independent School District will soon have an esports team in place at the high school for the first time in school history.

Fort Stockton ISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel revealed the news at the district’s regular board meeting on Sept. 28, stating that Assistant Superintendent Roy Alvarado will be the coordinator of the new venture.

“We have to be at the forefront of what the future holds.” Zamora explained. “There are students who may find this the most fascinating and interesting of the possible UIL events. We want to give them the opportunity to compete.”

The esports team will be held to same academic standards that the rest of the Fort Stockton ISD teams are held to.

The No Pass, No Play policy will apply to all students on the esports team.

For Alvarado, the first step in forming a team at the high school level was gauging interest in students via a survey and finding a coach with knowledge in the gaming realm.

The Assistant Superintendent of CTE, Technology, & Dual Credit noted that nearly 100 students (out of approximately 700 at the high school campus) showed interested in potentially joining the team. “Based on the interest we’re going to follow up with the students with interview type questions. Having interest is one thing, competing is another,” Alvardo said, explaining his thought process when deciding the size of the team. “Of the students that responded to the survey, over 75% of them have watched competitive esports. Also, over 75% expressed interest in actually competing.”

Team members will compete on Xbox, Play-Station, and Nintendo Switch consoles according to Alvarado.

Vanta, a youth development platform that became the official esports sponsor of the UIL in July of this year, will provide the avenue for Fort Stockton to compete at no cost to the district.

Games that Vanta approved and the Fort Stockton ISD is considering for students to play in competitions are Fortnite, Rocket League, League of Legends, Apex Legends, Valorant, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Cart 8, and Chess.

Alvarado noted that his expectation is to have the competing by the end of the month, which will allow students to participate in the fall season.

“I am hoping to have them signed on and registered so that they can compete by the end of this month. The window is still open for us to join the league for this season. There is a fall and spring season. We are delayed. However, they will still allow us to participate,” he said.

The Fort Stockton ISD will begin their esports venture with only a team at the high school level.

Alvarado explained that an esports team will eventually be formed at the middle school following the initial implementation with older students.

“That’ll be next. As soon as we get this kicked off here at the high school, we’re going to learn from that and we should be better off to get the middle school going.”