Our Esports program is more than just gaming, it’s about preparing students for the real world. So, what is Esports?

We caught up with the Director of TXWES Esports & Gaming, Eugene Frier, to take a peak into this up-and-coming industry that is thriving at Texas Wesleyan.

Share a bit about you and your passion for Esports.

As an 80s kid, I grew up playing Commodore 64 and Atari — and that soon grew to Nintendo, Sega, and anything else I could get my hands on. That passion has always been in my life, and my mom has joked before that I was born with a controller in my hand. I started competing during my undergraduate years and have kept up with esports and gaming throughout my life. During the 20 years I have worked in higher education, I have always seen gaming and pop culture as a way to connect with students and colleagues, so when the opportunity came about to help create and lead this program on campus, I was thrilled to jump right in.

Tell us about how the Esports program benefits Texas Wesleyan and vice versa.

The TXWES Esports & Gaming Program provides a very direct benefit to our students and campus. We have used this opportunity to engage and educate our students on a variety of life and soft skills that transcend gaming and will help them in whatever field they want to pursue. For the campus piece, it was exciting to be able to say that we were the first university in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, or Louisiana that had an official esports department on their campus funded by the university. Since we approach our program is a holistic way and include a content creation, community events and a career development focus (instead of just focusing on competitive esports), we have gotten positive feedback from the local esports companies as well and are working on developing experiential learning opportunities for our students.

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This is just a small piece of the story behind this incredible program, and we want our alumni to learn more! Join us on Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m. for our virtual TXWES Behind the Scenes: Esports event during Homecoming Weekend to hear the full rundown from current students. You won't want to miss this! 

You can sign up for this and more of our Homecoming events with the button below!