As we reach the last week of spring classes at Bethel, Chris and I devoted part of this week’s episode of The 252 to talking our students through their final exam. But the rest of you will want to listen in for what follows: a conversation about e-sports with our Bethel colleague Adrian Smithee, who has big plans for Bethel’s new e-sports club.
Bethel’s hardly alone among colleges and universities in exploring this frontier of sports. And while I’ll admit to being a little dubious about e-sports… but that’s partly because I’m so terrible at most all video games. But it was fascinating to listen to Adrian share his enthusiasm: how it grows out of his experience as a resident assistant watching so many college students play video games; how this college sport is different and similar to others; how this connects to my brief discussion of sports and disability in the other topical track students could explore this week in class; and finally, how e-sports have been affected by COVID.
While this was our last course-related episode of the spring, The 252 will return in two weeks for a season finale. You can download or stream this week’s episode and all others at Podbean and Apple Podcasts.
This week’s sports movie-heavy “Three to See”
• Chris Moore recommended Invictus (2009)…
• …while I took a second shot at convincing people to watch The Hustler (1961).
• And Sam shared a hilarious Ringer piece on the plausibility of the five Air Bud movies.
The Pietist Schoolman 