{"id":4534,"date":"2020-05-13T13:26:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T17:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4534"},"modified":"2020-05-13T13:26:51","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T17:26:51","slug":"more-than-a-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4534","title":{"rendered":"More Than A Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jacob W. May, Erica DesJardins &amp; Ty Passalacqua<\/strong><br \/>\nFocus<br \/>\nMidland HS<br \/>\n1st Place Division 2, News Writing<br \/>\nSports News Story<\/p>\n<p><b>JUDGING CRITERIA<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead features interesting, important angle<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uses colorful, lively style<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Avoids cliches, editorializing<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Displays knowledge of sports; uses understandable terms<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shows research\/interviewing skills; emphasizes how &amp; why<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Effective use of facts\/quotes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proper diction\/grammar; use of the third person<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unity\/coherence<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last summer, sixteen-year-old Kyle Giersdorf, screen name \u201cBugha\u201d, took home $3 million after winning the Fortnite World Cup in New York. This was the largest prize ever for a single player in a video game tournament, and was a key event in the growing popularity of esports. Now, high schools across Michigan, including Midland High, are starting their own esports teams. Colleges, such as Northwood University, are starting their own esports programs. Midland High\u2019s new team has 33 players and participates in the Michigan High School Esports Federation (MiHSEF), a freeto- join, non-profit league created by educators for students. Although the league has no fee to play, there is a $75 fee to join the esports team in order to offset the cost to play at Northwood University\u2019s esports arena. Joining the MiHSEF allows the team to play ten different high schools in Michigan. Within each team are different subsets that each focus on a specific game. This school year\u2019s games include Fortnite, Overwatch, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Super Smash Bros. Coach William Collison has had high exposure to video games because he watches his son play online with friends. After hearing of Giersdorf\u2019s win and his $3 million prize, he started to become more interested in video games, leading him to get in contact with Midland High\u2019s athletic director, Eric Albright, to start the team. Collison would compare the esports team to other sports at MHS. \u201cThey\u2019ll go out of tournaments and matches just beat because you\u2019re stressed, you\u2019re going crazy,\u201d Collison said. \u201cIt\u2019s physical, it\u2019s mental, it\u2019s a battle, it\u2019s something totally different that people are just now starting to explore and see that, yes, it is a sport.\u201d Junior Nathanial Knapp is a captain during both the fall and winter seasons of a six-player Overwatch team and a twoplayer Fortnite team. \u201cYou are the one that people are relying on to have a good decisionmaking process and to come up with a team that will work, while also factoring in everyone\u2019s different skill set,\u201d Knapp said. Most of the captains are chosen out of the senior class, although Knapp was chosen because of his leadership skills and experience. As an Overwatch captain, he chooses his team\u2019s characters. He also sets up a general gameplan for matches in both Overwatch and Fortnite. Knapp remembers playing video games for most of his life and is happy to finally have a place to play in a competitive environment with people who share his interest. \u201cI got into competitive games around age 11, and have just been playing since,\u201d Knapp said. \u201cWhere I live there aren\u2019t very many people who play, so when I come here and there are 50-some kids that are playing the same game, it\u2019s good to actually have a chat about something, instead of with someone who has no idea what I\u2019m talking about.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jacob W. May, Erica DesJardins &amp; Ty Passalacqua Focus Midland HS 1st Place Division 2, News Writing Sports News Story JUDGING CRITERIA Lead features interesting, important angle Uses colorful, lively style Avoids cliches, editorializing Displays knowledge of sports; uses understandable terms Shows research\/interviewing skills; emphasizes how &amp; why Effective use of facts\/quotes Proper diction\/grammar; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,69],"tags":[175,21],"class_list":["post-4534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","category-nw","category-sportsnewsstory","tag-2019-20","tag-division2","post_format-post-format-image","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Esports-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Esports-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Joel Beeker","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=9"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Esports-scaled.jpg?fit=2317%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1b8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}