Zooming In on Minecraft Esports
By Alexander M.
by Nooxy from ภาพของnookanikun; Created in Canva.com
The Minecraft esports at NorthStar Academy have skyrocketed over the last two school years due to the actions of NorthStar Academy’s Dean of Students, Scott Berggren. He started the first NorthStar Minecraft esports team at the start of the spring semester in 2023, after he was informed that NorthStar students had a high interest in Minecraft through a poll conducted by Chuck Deitch, who is the Administrative Director of School Programs at NorthStar Academy. This team created by Berggren would successfully get to the championship round at a CompMC tournament between multiple different schools based all over the United States. This has led Berggren to create even more Minecraft esports opportunities for the 2023-2024 school year, such as a NorthStar Academy Minecraft league where teams of NorthStar students face off in varying Minecraft minigames over the course of a few months.
When Scott Berggren started the Minecraft group at NorthStar Academy during the fall semester of the 2022-2023 school year, he was planning to have just two weekly sessions on Fridays where students and he would play together and enjoy themselves. His primary goals for this group were to play more Minecraft and add another way for students to connect with one another online. Once Berggren saw the amazing achievements of the esports team that Chuck Deitch created for Rocket League in the fall semester of 2022-2023 school year, he decided to add a Minecraft esports team to NorthStar. However, this brought up the question of which esports platform to use for this new team. After conducting some research, Berggren decided to go with CompMC because he “wanted a team sport, and one that others could potentially watch.”
CompMC is a competitive Minecraft esports platform that has official school leagues, which have a variety of American-based schools competing in a capture the flag format tournament. This team format was the main factor that drew Berggren to use CompMC as the official esports platform for the NorthStar Minecraft esports team for the 2022-2023 spring semester. This was a great choice for Berggren since it allowed him to easily stream the NorthStar Minecraft esports team playing for all NorthStar students and staff to see, which was just like he wanted.
However, after seeing all of the achievements that the first Minecraft esports team accomplished, Berggren has provided even more Minecraft esports opportunities for NorthStar Academy. The main thing that he has added this year is an in-house tournament between teams of NorthStar students where students face off in multiple unique minigames on the popular Minecraft server Hypixel.
Over the last two school years NorthStar Academy has delved deep into Minecraft esports, and it has opened many interesting and unique opportunities for students to interact with one another. The main opportunities that have been opened for students include being players in Scott Berggren’s NorthStar League and being a player on the CompMC esports platform for NorthStar Academy.
Columns: 🧑🚀NSA Culture
Alexander M. lives in Georgia, USA, with his parents and younger sister. He has been a student at NorthStar for a year and is just starting to write for the Navigator. He likes to play Minecraft with his friends and plays for the different esports teams here at NorthStar Academy.