This story was written by Kevin Rossi.
More than 100 people, mostly Drexel students and faculty, filled a room in Gerri C. LeBow Hall on April 1, all intently watching the screen. It was the first week of spring classes, but this wasn’t an evening lecture.
They gathered to watch the finals of the first-ever Dragon Bowl eSports Tournament, an intercollegiate Overwatch tournament hosted by the Drexel Solutions Institute as an extension of an esports project with Comcast. The event was also supported by Drexel’s Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success and Senior Vice President for Student Success Subir Sahu, PhD. The final tournament was broadcast on Twitch with professional eSports broadcasting and production team (Ethan “LordThethan” Blackmon, Joel “Guthix” Harvey, Sam “Saxamego” Eldridge).
Led by Senior Vice Provost for Academic-Industry Partnerships Rajneesh Suri, PhD, and Provost Solutions Fellow Lauren D’Innocenzo, PhD, the tournament was run by recent PhD graduate Hongjun Ye and current business administration doctoral students Madison Miller and Youngdai Won, with assistance from undergraduate and graduate students.
Sixty teams from nearly 30 universities in the United States and Canada competed in two regional tournaments for the final eight seeds. Drexel Draggers (Christopher “Hitscan” Ku, Aron “JeffGoldblum” Feller, Kieran “Peanut” Conroy) was one of the final eight. Delaware Savvix Simps (Zachary “HYPER” Witte, Emilio “ShoddyPod” Obregon, Nathan “Nate12” Lax) won the tournament.