MORGANTOWN – Noah Johnson was enjoying his time in the arena last year on the auditorium stage at South Middle School.
Johnson, then a senior at West Virginia University, was occupying rarified air as one of the leading NFL Madden players in the world – yes, the world.
The honors student in business who hails from the Baltimore area was the first player to be recruited – yes, recruited – to West Virginia University’s burgeoning Esports degree program.
He came to the school on Mississippi Street to talk to South students about the degree program with his coach and Esports Director Josh Steger. The program, Steger said, offers degrees and degree options in the field — both for competitors and content creators.
“There is so much you can do,” he said.
Steger’s trajectory, for example, took him from a real football field at a small college in his home state of Maryland, to the same kind of air occupied by Johnson in Morgantown for a virtual one.
“I thought I was going to be a Division I football player,” he said.
He had the talent and discipline, but he didn’t have the physical size necessary, he told the students.
So, he pivoted to the sidelines as an assistant coach – before moving into sports marketing and eventually, esports – which is expected to generate more than $9 billion in revenue in the U.S. this year, industry watchers say.
Steger, meanwhile, was the country’s Madden Coach of the Year in 2021, before coming to WVU.
It’s not just about gaming, Steger said, though the program has just put a call for high-schoolers who know their way around Rocket League, Call of Duty, League of Legends and other top titles in the franchise.
Designers of e-games, he added, use every bit of STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – in the process of building realms and playing fields, virtually.
And people in all-encompassing professions such as police officers and surgeons, he stressed, use such virtual training programs to build the hand-eye and decision-making skills they need to professionally survive.
Johnson, meanwhile, wasn’t just surviving at the time of that South Middle visit. He was thriving as a world competitor.
Even so, he liked the local country roads better, he said.
“The college game is more fun and the atmosphere is better,” he said. Especially in Morgantown. You’re not just repping WVU – you’re repping your whole state.”
Visit https://esportswvu.edu to learn more.
