Fall 2024 Esports season wrap up

Hello, everyone!  

This is Nate Rodemeyer, one of the two head esports coaches at Marshalltown Community College, and the Esports Program Management professor. As head coach Dr. Andrew Goforth, myself, and all our coaches and student-athletes end the Fall 2024 Esports season in the National Junior College Athletic Association Esports (NJCAAE) we are crossing the finish line with our strongest performances to date! What started in late August with 65 student-athletes ended on Friday, December 13th with three national championships, six national runners-up, and a 100% playoff appearance rate from all the teams at MCC! I'll break it down in a moment but first let me give you a primer on college esports. 

For those new to the scene, here are four things to know.  

• First, esports in the NJCAAE operates in two separate seasons, one in the fall semester and the second in the spring semester. Both seasons are independent, and each one culminates in a postseason where champions are crowned.  

• Second, an esports program can have as many teams and players on it as they can support, and the program chooses which video games they compete in. As long as the game is supported by the league, we can get a team together to compete! Under the term sports you have things like basketball, cross country, volleyball, football, etc. In esports, it works the same. Under the umbrella of "esports" you have different video games like Overwatch 2, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Rainbow Six Siege, and more. When operating efficiently, you can think of esports as its own department – each game is a separate team, and each game ideally needs its own coaches and dedicated resources. We can even field more than one team for the same video game if we want, the only limiting factors are equipment and having enough students to play!  

• Third, 100% of our competition occurs online. Every week, all our teams compete by communicating with opponents online and conduct matches remotely – while we'd love to travel, the logistics of hauling our equipment is expensive and unrealistic.  

• Fourth, we compete five nights a week (and even more during playoffs). Each weeknight, set teams compete. For instance, our busiest night this semester was Wednesdays. On those nights, we had all three of our Overwatch teams, two Madden students, and our three Mario Kart 4v4 teams all competing. So, on those nights we had 30+ students across eight teams all competing in league sanctioned matches at the same time! It makes for a wild ride! 

All of that only comes together with sound organization, strong leadership, and a vibrant culture! At the top are me and Andrew. As the co-heads of the program, we handle administrative duties, personnel management, recruitment, public relations, grade checks, and the like. We also each serve as a direct game title coach for one game each – I coach Mario Kart and Andrew coaches League of Legends. Next are our game title coaches. We competed in 12 different video games this fall. For each of our flagship games, we have a dedicated coach, and all twelve games have set practice and match times. Our coaches develop the structures, drills, scrimmages, and routines each team utilizes to maximize the value of our limited time together.  

Before going over the top performances from the season, I also need to make an incredibly important note. MCC earned recognition from the NJCAAE for earning the top All-Academic spot in the 2023-2024 year. This means that not only does MCC's large program (we're also in the Top 5 in the nation in terms of size) compete at the highest levels in the nation, but our students also maintain the highest academics in the league (out of over 250 member schools)! While the academic data is from the 23-24 year, I can say from experience and tracking grades this semester that our students are still maintaining that academic rigor this season! Keep that context in mind as I recap some of the season's highlights. 

So, let's focus on each of these game titles and how they performed this season.  

The Mario Kart team got to kick playoffs off for us. In Mario Kart, we compete in both a singles (or 1v1) format, as well as a team-based 4v4 format. I serve as the direct title coach for this game and have been involved with Mario Kart since childhood. In my previous position as a teacher and coach in Williamsburg and president of the Iowa High School Esports Association, I co-developed the rulebook for Mario Kart back in 2020, and I've followed the game's competitive scene ever since, which has experienced tremendous growth in just the last few years!  

Our Mario Kart 4v4 teams, called Mario Kart Gold, Mario Kart Blue, and Mario Kart White (named after our school colors), placed national runner-up, third place, and top 8, respectively. We narrowly missed the championship this time around in a grand finals match that came down to the outcome of the last race in the set!  

In Mario Kart 1v1, I had 14 students competing across three different levels, or divisions, of competition. In Division 1, John "Whit" Gerard finished 6th in the nation, and in Division 3, Luis Valdez placed 4th nationally while many of his teammates had top 8 or top 16 finishes. Division 2 is where MCC truly shined this fall – we had 7 racers in D2 Mario Kart. All 7 of them earned playoff slots, which is an impressive feat considering there were only 16 spots up for grabs. At the end of the tournament, MCC students took all four top slots (and arguably the 5th, too, but there was no 5/6th place match to truly make this claim). Ryne Erickson took the national championship after an undefeated season, Roby Widner earned national runner-up, Jatniel Martinez placed 3rd, and Tess Pacza snagged 4th place. Corbin Bergmann also placed 5/6, although there was no 5th place match to determine his final placement. This is the most dominant performance the Mario Kart team has had across the board to date! 

Next up is Overwatch 2! Overwatch 2 also has multiple teams at MCC – Gold and Blue. The Overwatch 2 team is led by Sam "sauce" Geller, a remote consultant who works with the team from Canada. Sauce has experience working with Overwatch League teams (think professional esports) and is consistently a top-ranking player himself. Andrew also oversees the Overwatch 2 team to provide additional strategies, game day support, and embodies the culture, intensity, and pride that has led that team to victory! Overwatch 2's Gold team did the impossible this fall – they beat two teams that defeated us in the regular season to win the Division 2 national championship for the third consecutive season! This marks the third championship win for student-athletes Nathan Jorgensen, Ethan McGerr, and Lijah Powell, and the first for Paul Novotny and team captain, Ryan Goulding. 

Our third and final championship this season came from the Rainbow Six Siege team, coached by Bryant "Kass" Spiker. Siege has historically been one of MCC's strongest games, consistently finishing as the national runner-up or top 4 in all our seasons running the game. Coach Kass has been gunning for the championship spot since the start, and this season he got his wish. The Siege team had a dominating performance throughout the regular season, and capped off the postseason with a commanding 2-0 victory that carried them to the title of Division 3 champion! 

Now, let's blitz through each of the national runners-up!  

As previously stated, Mario Kart took the runner-up spot in both 4v4 and Division 2 1v1.  

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team also had its strongest season-to-date! The Smash team is led by Coach Max Pietrzak (who also coaches Madden for MCC) and is the largest team in the program, boasting nearly 20 students alone. Smash is also the largest game in the NJCAAE, with over 400 students competing across all three divisions. MCC fielded seven Division 2 players for the 1v1 season, and they fought their way to national runner-up, 3rd, and 5th, with other notable placements within the top 10, top 24, and top 32. In the Grand Finals, Shontario "Mizery" Dudley performed a bracket reset on his opponent from Mott Community College and narrowly missed the championship in the most exciting Smash game the program has ever seen! In the team-based format of Smash, called Crew Battles, Coach Max led the Gold team to its third consecutive national runner-up finish, while the Blue team placed Top 8! 

In Madden, Coach Max led student-athlete Micah Garringer in Division 1, where Garringer earned regional runner-up and secured his place in the national tournament where he placed 4th in the country!  

Finally, MCC's very own Fortnite team, consisting of Cameron Lanfier and Connor Brewer, marched on to a national runner-up in Division 3 Zero Build and barely lost in the last game of the last set in the match. This is doubly impressive as Fortnite currently operates a secondary title for MCC, and one of the few that doesn't have its own dedicated coach or practice regimen. These two battled to the bitter end while doing so mostly independently! Throughout the regular and postseason, Andrew and I would give them general advice and guidelines for developing game plans and managing their mindset, and they were very receptive to the feedback. 

MCC also had MANY other notable finishes within the season, all of which are detailed in the season recap infographics, but the program is so large it is hard to list them all here! 

As I wind down, I wanted to also give information on our live broadcasts. We stream as many matches as we can on both our Twitch and YouTube channels (linked below). With so many teams competing we cannot livestream every match every week, unfortunately. So, I work with some of the esports management students to develop a weekly schedule that rotates which games are featured to get as many people "on air" as possible throughout the season. Part of that scheduling process also involves assigning shoutcasters for each stream – these are our "sports commentators" who bring the action and excitement to our viewers and help them understand the games, and we have some of the best in the business! These streams are also the best way to watch our games, although we certainly welcome in-person spectating, as well!  

Finally, I wanted to leave you all with a few ways in which you can provide ongoing support to the MCC Esports program! The first, and easiest, is to create a Twitch account and subscribe to the channel. You can either pay for the subscription each month, OR you can link Twitch to an existing Amazon Prime account (Twitch is owned by Amazon) which gives you a FREE Twitch subscription every month. MCC Esports earns roughly 50% of the revenue from each subscription. We are looking at similar integration with YouTube in the future!  

The second is to sponsor the program! We currently have four phenomenal sponsors that have provided direct support to the program to aid with equipment and scholarship needs – these are the Marshalltown Company, the Marshalltown Chamber of Commerce, Hellberg's Jewelers, and Mechdyne. These sponsorships come at various levels and with various perks – shout outs / ad reads on our streams, "Play of the Week" clips that get shared on YouTube and our social media, and more. If you would like to become a sponsor, please reach out to me directly! 

Other ways you can support the program include direct donations and following and sharing what we're doing on social media! We have an active Twitter / X account and an Instagram (linked below), and every time you retweet or share a post of ours, it helps spread the word far and wide about the good work happening at MCC! 

Lastly, please keep being champions and allies for our students! This program would not exist without their hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. The people we are privileged to coach are the lifeblood of this program, and they pour their blood, sweat, and tears into this team every day to make it the "loud and proud" program it is today! Those of you who follow the team know that this isn't just students playing video games – it is a home where our students are learning teamwork, coordination, accountability, maturity, and more. It is a safe place for them to be themselves and be their best. So, keep sharing the good work being done and defend the value and integrity of the students who are part of our wonderful esports family! 

Thank you so much, and have a wonderful, restful break (I know I will). GO TIGERS! 

Sincerely, 

Coach Rodemeyer 

Follow MCC Esports on social media: 

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/esportsmcc 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@esportsmcc 

Twitter / X: mccesportsia 

Instagram: mccesportsia