GRAND FORKS – Evan Guilmino, a sophomore from Minot North High School, sat studying the skills and strategies of possible competitors in the Super Smash Bros video game as he prepared for a championship game Saturday afternoon, March 29, in the North Dakota Esports State Tournament at UND.

“This is my first year (in esports),” said Guilmino, who specializes in the character King K. Rool in the Super Smash Bros game. But “I’m also getting good at Mortal Combat.”

These are a couple of the seven games that students in grades 9-12 were competing in, either individually or in teams, during the state tournament.

Guilmino was one of 268 high school students at 36 schools throughout the state who gathered for the tournament Friday and Saturday, March 28 and 29, hosted by Fenworks at the UND Memorial Union.

“I get to meet new players from around the state,” he said, “and get to show off a little bit.”

“Esports,” which is short for “electronic sports,” involves organized, competitive video game competition. It engages students in an environment steeped in “camaraderie and community,” said Hayden Sherva, marketing coordinator at Fenworks. “Of course, there are rivalries, like other sports, but (esports) is bringing them together.”

“It aligns very closely with other traditional sports,” Sherva said. “Everyone likes to have something they’re good at, that they can invite their families and friends to, invite new friends to, and show off the skills they’re learned.

“It brings a lot of students out of their shells,” he said, recalling the story of a very shy student who transferred into a Dunseith, North Dakota, school. He was so proficient in video gaming he was asked to be captain of the school’s team.

The student underwent “radical change,” Sherva said. And “he played a big role in helping the GM (general manager) organize esports” at that school.

Esports is “very communication-based,” he said, and offers students an avenue to “befriend others in their school that they may not have met before.”

Sherva’s employer Fenworks, a Grand Forks-based company, promotes esports career pathways to students. This is the fourth time Fenworks has hosted the North Dakota state competition in Grand Forks. Earlier this year, it hosted state tourneys in Wyoming, Minnesota and South Dakota, Sherva said.

Surveying the Memorial Union filled with esports tourney participants, UND President Andy Armacost said, “It’s incredible to have all these students here. There’s such a sense of teamwork and camaraderie.”

Having walked by a winning Minot team, he said, “you can see the pride (on their faces).” UND launched a bachelor’s degree in esports about five years ago, but esports draws interest from majors and non-majors alike, he said. Several esports labs are available for student use in the Union’s lower level.

“It draws (students) from all over campus,” Armacost said.

In the past, video gaming was viewed differently than it is now, Sherva said. The stereotypical notion of a young person spending time isolated in the basement playing video games is no longer true thanks to esports.

The skills students learn from participating in esports – such as strategic thinking, leadership and effective communication – are applicable to many careers fields.

Students benefit from enhanced “self-confidence, which is so important for every single aspect of life,” Sherva said. “And the team-building aspect is there.”

In addition to “soft skills,” students learn to become more comfortable with technology and more digitally literate, preparing them for work in “really anything STEM related,” he said. “In most workplaces, it’s hard to get a job if you don’t know how to use a computer.”

And esports presents a wide variety of job opportunities including photography, live-streaming and “casting,” a role similar to the announcer at a sporting event.

The field offers an abundance of “real-world opportunities to get a real job” in today’s market and in the new careers that are unfolding, Sherva said.