Interest in esports has exploded in recent years, both nationally and internationally, resulting in a billion-dollar professional esports industry. The accessibility and inclusivity of esports brings together students from diverse backgrounds who share a common passion.
Our esports program provides a connected community for students while helping them develop essential real-life career skills, like teamwork, creativity, problem-solving and communication skills.
Director of esports Program / Head Coach
Christian Konczal, Director of esports/Head Coach
Christian Konczal
Christian Konczal brings a wide range of esports experience to Missouri Western as the leader of our new esports program. He is familiar with both the operational and academic side of esports and plans to build a program focused on developing the critical skills of leadership, communication, team-building and collaboration.
“The challenge will be to build competitive distinctiveness in demanding conditions,” Konczal said. “Our initial focus will be on creating a physical and programmatic home for students in order to help contribute to the social capital of the campus community, while providing experiential learning opportunities that will propel our students into their chosen professional fields.”
Christian previously taught at Champlain College in Burlington, VT and concurrently worked with the Zips esports program at the University of Akron.
Frequently Asked Questions
Esports is organized team-based, multiplayer competitive video gaming. Competitions among collegiate teams and professionals can take place in arenas in front of large audiences and are streamed on the internet or broadcast on television.
Students and prospects are interested in watching, participating and competing in video games. Creating a physical and programmatic home for student gamers connects students socially while building critical soft skills like teamwork, communication, critical thinking and leadership skills. From a competitive standpoint, there are more than 130 universities nationwide with competitive varsity teams, including 16 in Missouri.
The structure of the program will mirror traditional varsity athletics with team members participating in tryouts, wearing uniforms and maintaining practice schedules. Student athletes are held to a code of conduct as well as must meet academic standards for active participation.
This will be determined by student interest. Let us know what games you compete in already, play for fun, or watch!
Yes! As of 2019, approximately 250 million people watch esports worldwide on a regular basis. In the US that number is around 84 million, which makes it the second most watched competition behind football (141 million), beating out baseball (79 million) and basketball (63M).
Absolutely! Each team will have manager and coach positions available as well as experiential learning opportunities through event management, broadcast production, photo and video editing, marketing and application development.
