Last week, the head coach of AU’s new esports program resigned, leaving many with questions as to how and when the team’s season would begin.
Associate Professor of Mathematics Dr. Justin Lambright, the faculty advisor for the esports program, has been working with Athletic Director Marcie Taylor to fill this newly vacant position.
“Right now we’re in the process of hiring a new head coach,” said Lambright. “We’ve got a couple of leads.”
In the meantime, Lambright is stepping up to the plate, describing his position as “interim coordinator.”
“I don’t really have a title,” said Lambright, “but I’m working to track down leads and make sure everything is progressing as it should until we get someone in the [head coach] position.”
Lambright explained that the esports program consists of several games, each of which have a unique schedule. For the League of Legends team, the season will begin on Saturday, Oct. 24.
“For Rocket League, the schedule is still being determined, and it will start hopefully later this fall,” said Lambright. “For the other games, I’m still tracking down that information with the change of leadership right now, but they should definitely be playing by the spring.”
Although the esports program was introduced this semester, Lambright explained that there are already over 20 students on the roster.
“We have four Rocket League players, six who are on our League of Legends team, 10 that are interested in Counter Strike: Global Offensive and for OverWatch, we currently have four—I think we need six to field a team,” said Lambright. “We need two more people to get that off the ground.”
Lambright explained that the team hopes to livestream their competitions to allow fans to watch from anywhere.
“We have created an esports Twitch stream—AndersonUEsports is the name of the channel—and we will hope to be using that to broadcast live,” said Lambright.