Nooksack Valley High School has a state-championship level esports team. There’s also a student broadcasting group producing commercials for local businesses. They were both born out of a technology club that has evolved into so much more.
Owen Craig, the club’s advisor and the technology director for the district, launched a technology club for high schoolers about three years ago, but soon realized there was a strong interest in esports. Instead of limiting the focus, that allowed the club to expand. Esports has become much more than playing video games. While there is that—the Street Fighter 6 team is the defending state champions—the club now live streams all its competitions with commentary and video production added in.
“Most of the club isn’t actually students playing the games,” Craig says, adding that the club also attracts students interested in digital marketing, those who want to operate cameras, run live streams, learn video production and more.
As the esports team has success on a state level, the support team around them continues to grow. The season recently kicked off and Craig says livestreaming has gotten more involved, with the production team creating an entire show around it with student-created music and commentary.
“We give creative students outlets to have their work shown,” Craig says, adding the club hopes to take the production show to traditional sports, such as having instant replays and sideline interviews at a basketball game, while student-made ads run during the breaks. “These are all really cool things that are real world and career focused.”
Jared Navarro, a junior and head of esports for the club, says he’s most interested in the livestreaming aspect and says the commentating—“shoutcasting” in the esports vernacular—has helped him get more comfortable with speaking.
As Craig tried to open the club to as many avenues of technology as possible, the video production arm has really started to develop. The group started with decades-old, donated camera equipment to help with live streaming the esports events before the team really started dabbling in video production. “It has really taken off and that is the biggest draw for the club,” Craig says, “the broadcasting and video production. Basically [the students] have made a marketing company.”
With that, the students do commercials for local businesses as a fundraiser. “Now we have some good equipment from a local grant,” Craig says, adding that it is difficult to get grant funding for esports, but much more doable for video production.
Tiger Construction has hired the group the past two years to make customer satisfaction videos. There have now been multiple videos and commercials purchased by local companies.
Leilani Daniels, a junior, head of productions for the club, says she’s been intrigued by the opportunity to learn to use cameras and audio technology. She sees the skill as something beneficial for a potential career, but for now is enjoying continuing to grow in her ability to create promotional videos.
The club also engages in field trips, recently visiting the home of a local artist who does digital design for major Hollywood productions and top-flight television shows. He showed the group of students his production method, answered questions and opened their world to a fresh perspective of careers available in both the arts and technology.
Hendrick Rogers, a junior at NVHS, has been part of the club since he was a freshman, enjoying the “interactive approach we have on different projects that we do.”
Rogers says the experiences have shown him career paths he didn’t know about and now he’s aiming for a career in cybersecurity. “I now realize how important technology is to our modern world,” he says, “and how my generation is going to be very involved in it.”
“It is incredibly rewarding, and the kids notice that the things they enjoy that don’t necessarily get high praise, now there is finally a place they can hang out with their friends and do what they like and start to learn new things at school,” Craig says. “Video games get them in the door, but esports, marketing, broadcasting, video production, photography, those are all things you can do, and the kids are starting to see there is more out there.”
A fresh perspective on the future is available to the students. “They don’t even know they are learning,” Craig says. “There are real jobs that didn’t exist 15 to 20 years ago, but now are viable career paths.” And esports helps students see them.
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