A whole community of untapped academic potential and student involvement lay stagnant in Spartan Starleague, the casual gaming club at SJSU, until business management senior Alan Ignacio logged on.
Under the username “Kudo,” Ignacio excelled in the gaming community, ultimately building up a credible and respectable reputation to later establish Spartan Esports as a club sport at SJSU in Fall 2018.
“A lot of people can agree on the idea that esports should be a thing on campus, but it just takes very few to push it,” Ignacio said. “I guess I’m just one of the few, and I guess my whole shindig on this campus is to push it as far as humanly possible.”
Ignacio said he was inspired in his youth when he spent childhood playing “Crazy Taxi” on his brother’s Sega Dreamcast console.
“Crazy Taxi” fueled his competitive spirit, which expanded into other games such as “League of Legends” and “Overwatch.”
So when the professional developers of these games started to create and grow programs across the collegiate scene, it allowed the Mountain West Conference to bring esports into the fold.
This move essentially provided financial backing for SJSU to invest in and expand its gaming community.
Inspired by the 2013-16 Spartan Starleague “League of Legends” team, Ignacio said he saw this opportunity and ran with it.
He worked alongside SJSU Club Sports and transformed the small “League of Legends” team into a group on the same competitive level as any major athletic sport.
“You can engage so many college students through the ability to compete,” said Ignacio.
The newly-founded esports “League of Legends” competive team went on to become the Mountain West conference champions in a 2019 Las Vegas tournament.
Ignacio’s vision to continuously expand esports as an outlet for student involvement has inspired his teammates.
“It’s been nice for somebody who’s been kind of, like, your boss to tell you to just do what you do because he has full faith in me,” said Branson Lowe, a senior physics major who committed to SJSU because of its gaming community. “He’s made me more confident in my own decisions.”
Underclassmen who are skilled but relatively new to the esports team environment respect Ignacio’s active leadership.
“He’s always taking the initiative to set up spreadsheets on opponents for us, relaying messages between us players and SJSU upper management,” computer science freshman Michael Newman said. “And stopping by during games to check in with players to see if they need anything.”
Ignacio said he hopes he can lead his teams to victory this season, enhancing the future and ultimately, the longevity of the program.
“The university is watching us, especially after last year. There are people that are faculty that are looking into this program . . . you know, potentially leading to scholarships for our players, a facility to be built on campus,” Ignacio said.
Ignacio finds the gaming community as an entirely uncharted field that teaches students discipline, communication and how to collaborate as a team.
“It’s the reality that our generation has socialized through, online through the internet. Some of [the team’s players’] best friends are entirely online so the arguments against it are very primitive at this point,” he said.
Ignacio added that University of California, Irvine built an expansive esports arena on its campus, filled with desktops with i7 processors to support esports.
Additionally, since Fall 2015, Maryville University is just one of the many colleges that offer thousands of dollars in scholarships for their professional players, according to the Maryville University Press website.
Though SJSU is not yet one of these colleges, Ignacio hopes it will be soon, after his team proves their expertise in the Las Vegas conference this year.
“The idea of our students flying to Las Vegas, of all places, expense-free, because of school-related stuff for video games, that is unbelievable for some people, but that is starting to be the reality of what esports can become,” said Ignacio.
Ignacio said he expects to be working as an influencer in the gaming business or a manager of a professional team after he graduates.
To him, esports is an exponentially growing community at the heart of Silicon Valley.
