Megan Welch, the coach of Riverside Brookfield High School’s esports team, said her team has grown from nothing to a fierce competitor within the Illinois high school esports community in under two years.
Last month, the team competed in a tournament at Bradley University, where they took home the first-place medals for both individual and team play in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the latest game in Nintendo’s crossover fighting series, in what Welch described as an “unprecedented feat.”
“This is a team that people recognize. These are players that people know about. One of my crews players is known as the scary [Princess] Peach kid because he only plays Peach, and it’s disgusting,” she said jokingly.
Members of the team also compete in tournaments for Mario Kart, Nintendo’s cart-racing game, and Rocket League, a game where players use rocket-powered cars to play oversized soccer.
Welch, a special education teacher at RB, was hired in 2023 with the team in mind.
“They were looking for somebody to be an esports coach. It was in the application. I really hadn’t considered it before, but I play video games, so I was like, ‘Yeah, totally,’” she told the Landmark.
She said only four students showed up to the team’s first meeting, where she didn’t have a plan of action.
“I was like, ‘Listen, I know as much as you do. We’re going to figure this out together,’” she said.
Slowly, the group grew as students brought friends and narrowed the scope on the kinds of games they wanted to play. Now, there’s a core group of about 14 students, with others coming less consistently or focusing less on the competitive aspects, Welch said.
“Now, I have a team that I can take a to a tournament two-and-a-half hours away. They’re getting here at 6 a.m. They’re getting on the bus. I’m like, ‘Let’s go.’ They get there; they absolutely crush it,” she said. “There is this kid that we’re friends with from a totally different school district who is really good at watching people play and giving them immediate feedback on how to make their game better. We’re connected with all these different groups of people.”
When it comes to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Welch said the team has a burgeoning solo player, Declan Gibbs, who is ranked third in the state, while the other members compete as a crew.
In crews matches, players compete in a series of duels, fighting to knock out their opponent while retaining as many lives as possible, which they carry over into the next duel once the opponent is fully eliminated. The victor is declared when one crew has all of its players eliminated.
At the tournament at Bradley, Welch said the crews team was initially eliminated, but due to the double-elimination format, they climbed the losers’ bracket before facing off against the undefeated team — and beating them.
“When we won the losers’ bracket, we had to go back up to the grand finals and actually face the team that had knocked us into the losers’ bracket,” she said. “It was all for their extreme effort, their extreme teamwork. It’s really, really, really impressive.”
Welch said her students have found community within the team.
“A lot of these are really high-achieving kids. I went to this high school, so I remember how it is. You’ve got your grades, you’ve got your sports, you’ve got your fine arts, and you’re trying to do everything at a high level. That’s great, but it’s also so good-feeling to do something fun at a high-level, too. Something with your friends,” she said. “This is their space. They come in here so frequently, even when it’s not their practice day, because they enjoy playing. They want to help each other get better. I hear them coaching each other with a lot of technical language.”
It might be easy to remain skeptical about the world of esports if you’re unfamiliar, but Welch has posed an open invite to the tournament RBHS is hosting on Saturday, April 18.
“It’s almost impossible to conceptualize until you’ve seen it,” she said. “There’s this etiquette. There’s this camaraderie. There’s this collaboration. They’re definitely not sitting there and playing things and not talking. You should hear Mario Kart teams play against each other and do callouts … I could name every translatable skill, but if you come and see it, you will know. The energy and enthusiasm and genuine joy is wild to experience, and you will understand. Even if you’re not a fan of video games, you can see it and understand.”
