Story by Kit Martin

There’s a new sports team at the University of Montevallo and it’s not one played outside.

UM welcomes eSports, a team of individuals who compete not on a field but on a computer screen.

Groups learn to play as a team for games such as League of Legends and Fortnite. Tryouts for the team was held Saturday at Strong Hall and the turnout was huge!

The new head coach is game-fan Dr. Brendan Beal, an assistant Social Work professor at UM. When the head coach postion was offered, Dr. Beal was ecstatic.

The tryouts consisted of individuals who were randomly placed into teams to see if they had the skill set Dr. Beal was looking for:

“Well, these tryouts, we’re looking to see your game play, and how you play the game but…above that we are looking for communicating with your team…”

eSports will kick off their debut season hopefully in Fall 2019.