UC-Irvine E-Sports Scholarships Aims To Attract the Best of the Best!

Jordan Carter, Tin Hong, Jesse Wang, Michael Tran and Trage Tran are pretty excited about a new E-Sports effort at their school.

The school has announced that, with the help of Riot Games and another company they are going to turn their campus E-sports into something E-lectric!

The five were part of an effort to help shape what, in the fall, will a collegiate-level competition. They'll have a PC Arena, and scholarships will be available for 10 E-Athletes.

Mark Deppe, the acting e-athletic director says, "We are looking for near professional level. So, the top 1 to 200 in North America. So, people that are really really good at this game."

He calls this historic because it's the first public institution to do t his.

Freshman Jake Tran says, what's exciting about E-sports is what is exciting about any sport.

The gamer says, "there's something in common too every member of the human race and that's winning! Cllaiming the enemy nexus (tower)… at the end of the game.. that's what feels so good."

Michael Tran, no relation to Jake, says he has an interest in mainstream sports, "but I think my level of E-sports goes about 100 times over." That cracked the sophomore up!

The other students had similar feelings.

Jesse Wang is the President of The Association of Gamers at UC Irvine. TAG for short. He's very proud of what his school is doing and his club's involvement.

The scholarship effort is historic, but the addition of an arena makes it even more special. The Zot Zone is currently the school's recreation center. There are lots of pool tables in there. Those will go and be replaced by championship E-Sports…specifically, League of Legends.

The first scholarships will be given in the fall. That's when The UCI League of Legends team will go into worldwide competition.