STLCC’s Robert Cruz talks about the origins and future of STLCC’s new eSports program
BY: LILIAN THUM
Staff Writer
St. Louis Community College recently started a new eSports program spearheaded by Robert Cruz. Cruz was a competitive player on the University of Minnesota’s Overwatch team, after graduating he returned home to Florida and became an important face in the local eSports community.
“I just recently moved here, I got involved in eSports,” he said. “About seven years ago, I played on the University of Minnesota’s Overwatch team while I was there, […] [those were] amazing times. And those are some of the best individuals I’ve ever met in my life and we’re still lifelong friends to this day. And I still participate in a lot of their stuff, the eSports at Minnesota, and I’m involved in several different ways.”
After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cruz moved back to his home state of Florida and through working at the Hillsborough County Parks and Recreation Department, he continued to engage with eSports.
“There, he said, “I worked with an obstacle program. They were looking to start an eSports program specifically because partner recreation eSports at the time was growing. And so I was involved with creating their eSports program there.”
A few years down the road, he saw an opening at STLCC to build an eSports program and took it. The program likely will include games like Overwatch, Rocket League, and Super Smash Bros with other possibilities being Valorant, Counter Strike Two, Apex Legends, and Hearthstone. Cruz says he is not adverse to adding more games to the program, but it all depends on student feedback.
Of these games there will be three tiers. Tier one is competing at a varsity level, Tier Two is competing at a junior varsity level, and Tier Three will be open for everyone and will be the most hands off.
Speaking to just how open for admission that third tier is, Cruz said “It’s really looking for anybody who is from the [college’s community, including] faculty, alumni, staff as well, who want to participate in the game. And I really liked that idea. Because what it does is it expands it more out. So I think having that as an option is something that’s pretty unique. And this is also something that could be a pipeline for recruiting purposes as well. We could open up teams for high school teams to compete and really, they get that additional experience.”
To increase the abilities of the team, training will include videos of players and going over what to do differently as well as training matches. Cruz does see one current obstacle that he hopes to have rectified before the program kicks into high gear.
“I will say,” he said, “that there’s a lot of single player, individual solo competitive events that we could participate in. Super Smash Ball is the easiest one.”
The program will truly begin to kick into that high gear in the fall semester, and Cruz said that the planning for everything up to now has gone fairly smoothly.
“So a lot of the structure that’s going to be going into the program is already kind of laid out for us with the governing organizations,” he said. “They have their particular schedules and timelines and they put it out pretty early right now.”
Cruz also said that a scholarship may be offered for varsity team members, although the detailed specifics of the scholarship are still being worked out.
“So the scholarship is mainly gonna be for the varsity as of right now, it depends on a lot in the scholarship funds,” he said. “Every sport has a particular amount of scholarships that they can handle. And so it’s gonna be on the basis, as well. So if there’s a particular role that we’re looking to build, we are going to be heavily involved in utilizing those if need be. All that is still being sorted out, but we are going to have them coming in.”
The program is open to participants from all of the college’s campuses, but it will be hosted at the South County campus. Those interested in joining this eSports program can contact Cruz at rcruz9@stlcc.edu.
