Mike Dahle: All right, everybody. Welcome back to another installment of Future Fridays. Here today with me is Kenneth Kresina from UW Green Bay. He is the esports coordinator there. Thank you for joining us today, Kenneth.
Kenneth Kresina: Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike. Really excited to talk about our program.
Dahle: All right, so you're a relatively new program. You're a new esports coordinator. Why don't you start by telling us just a little bit about your background and an introduction as to how you got to UW Green Bay?
Kresina: Yeah, sure. While I was in college, I originally entered college thinking I was going to major in astronomy. I decided that astronomy and physics was not quite the path for me very quickly. I was still kind of in limbo to decide what I was doing. But I found out that I was spending a lot of my social time with the esports club on campus at the Ohio State University. Go Bucks. In comparison to my other extracurricular clubs, I was spending no time at the astronomy society. I was spending no time anywhere else. It was all with the gaming club.
So I figured I'd give esports as a career a shot. In order to do that, thinking that I had more experience on the scholastic and collegiate side of things, I decided to go get my masters from Illinois State University in sport management. After that, I wrote my thesis and ended up applying for jobs. Ended up here at UW Green Bay last year. I'm really excited to be going in for year two now. Overall, yeah, it's been a great time to be up here. So that's kind of my, the short version of my personal path.
Dahle: The abridged version if you will. So, in your second year here now at Green Bay, can you kind of talk about the program structure that you have in place, some of like the competitive games that you're looking at? I know we were just talking and you talked about how busy September was as far as a turnaround to get teams ready to go for the season. Just a little bit of insight as to games that you're running, maybe leagues that you're competing in, practice, schedule, all that kind of fun jazz.
"I definitely rely heavily on those student leaders which I think is a great opportunity for those that are looking for that extra leadership experience and resume builder."
Kresina: Yeah, sure. So, we compete in six different game titles. The majority or primary league that we try to focus on competing in is the Wisconsin Esports Conference. Of course, that is only colleges and universities within the state of Wisconsin. They have games for Rocket League and Valorant in the fall and Overwatch and Smash Brothers in the spring. We do offer the teams year round and so when they're in their off semesters right now they will compete in the Play Versus Collegiate League as kind of that secondary competition for them. We also offer teams in League of Legends and Marvel Rivals and we're really excited and whipped up about Marvel Rivals here, especially a lot of interest in that game as it has been.
Yeah, overall the program is kind of structured in a way, I am the one full-time staffer and that is really it. I rely pretty heavily on my student leadership positions. Both my student workers inside of the esports lounge that oversee the space on a day-to-day basis. We're open for 12 hours a day on the weekdays and seven hours a day on the weekends. In addition, my student managers putting on events and doing some marketing efforts for the program and my team captains as well, voted on by their peers, to help coordinate matches with their opponents and things like that because 12 different teams running matches and schedules all through me is not going to work. So I definitely rely heavily on those student leaders which I think is a great opportunity for those that are looking for that extra leadership experience and resume builder.
Dahle: How do you go about finding those leaders? Are they approaching you or do you just kind of see them in the wild and you're like, "Hey, you're a gem. I like you.”
Kresina: Yeah, it kind of varies, I suppose, on the role, right? I think the way that I structure the program is at the beginning of every semester, I sit down with each team to discuss what our values are, what our goals are, and what our expectations are to cater the experience of the program to that particular team and that roster of several students that are in the room at that time.
It's at that meeting that I will ask them to pick a captain or vote on a captain who I explain is more of that communicator person who's meant to keep the team in the loop, keep me in the loop on what's going on, communicate with opponents to get matches done and reschedules, things of the like there. Pretty quickly I think the students either one volunteers and everyone seems to agree or there's a pretty overwhelming consensus amongst the students who know each other better than I do who should be that kind of point person for the team. So, that's kind of the way that the captain's role works.
As for the other roles, the more involved students are with the program, the easier it is to find a place for them, whether that be in the newly developing broadcast program right now or working in the esports lounge as a desk attendant or in that kind of manager role overseeing events, community posts, and things like that. So, we're certainly starting to or we're continuing, I should say, to grow those kinds of opportunities that students get, and as we continue to do, I'm quite confident there will be a home for everyone.
Dahle: A little bit of a different question here, but because you're so relatively new into this, has this kind of been, there's just been a student gaming club that was already part of campus that's now kind of transitioning into this esports program? Are you starting to get some more boots on the ground recruitment type initiatives going like what does that kind of process look like for you so far?
Kresina: Sure. So the program was initially founded in February of 2022. We are within our university union department which is pretty unique. I share the same office suite as a student marketing team alongside the event reservations group that does all the bookings for the meeting rooms inside of our union. I'm down the hall from the main person that oversees the facility operations and the custodians of the building.
That's the department I'm housed in. We're kind of the odds and ends department. We like that role, right? For all intents and purposes, that's allowed us to be kind of unique in the middle in terms of how we're approaching and how we continue to evolve. I think as well the largest thing that that's allowed us to do is pretty quickly when the program was first founded in February of 2022 it was very easy to apply a student employment model to get student workers in the esports lounge and to have that facility open up first for casual play for students. That facility is free to use. It's open 74 hours out of the week. Mostly as long as the building is open, we're open as well.
So that's kind of the program's first roots. I think over time there wasn't a full-time employee dedicated to esports. It was kind of some part of someone else's position. The students continued coalescing around wanting to build competitive teams out much like a club would, but not as a club. It was always part of this program and that's also it's got its pros and cons to not have clubs, a true club, here at the institution, so everything is going through the formal program altogether and as we continue to grow we're not doing a lot of recruiting at the moment, right now I don't have scholarships to offer unfortunately at the moment, but I do think it's an exciting time to be a part of esports at this institution. If you're in the area, you like representing the Phoenix, like wearing the color green. There's not many other schools across the state that you could wear green for.
Dahle: I think everybody in this state has something that's green to wear if I'm being honest. (laughs)
Kresina:(laughs) That's right. That's right.
Dahle: I know too you were kind of just briefly touching on your facilities there too, so let's kind of jump down to that. In the student union what is in your facility? We don't necessarily need PC specs or obviously anything to that nature but just available options for students there.
Kresina: Yeah. So at the moment we have 30 PCs, Alienware PCs and four Nintendo Switch consoles. We also have a VR headset that we'll occasionally put out, and we're hoping in the future to build a broadcast studio. So that's kind of like the next major project that I'll be working on.
We're also overseeing the billiards tables and the ping pong table that live right outside of our facility in the university union. It's kind of that unique spot for all things kind of, just general, even, there's plenty of spaces for some tabletop games. Down the hall, the student engagement center, I believe, has some board games that folks can play. So we're kind of that main one of those main hangout spots on campus, that students can come to right in the same building as all of our food options on campus, or most, I should say, of our food options, including our primary cafeteria and dining hall. The facility is uniquely situated being in the university union, very centrally located, and you'll often find students hanging out between classes, and especially after lunch, more so than you might in the evenings, especially as a very heavy commuter campus.
"I really want to be there to be a champion for the students at the end of the day. That's what my job is. That's what I love about my job the most is being that mentor figure."
Dahle: Well, you've probably talked and just transitioned us into the next question here regarding academics. As students are transitioning from high school to college, does your program offer some sort of supports, not only for the social transition, but as well as the academic transition to the collegiate space as well.
Kresina: Yeah. In terms of that support, the largest thing that I say is that my door is open. My office lives on the third floor in the union, which if you're not looking for it, you probably can't find it, but it's pretty easy once you do find it. I'll often have students come up and say hello for whatever reason. But if anyone ever needs anything, I'm there to support them and connect them to the resources on campus that we do have.
For example, we have a wellness center that is free to use counseling for students for a couple of sessions per semester or per year. We have a learning center where there's tutoring for English and math. And those are the kinds of resources that I can connect students to very quickly. There's no dedicated esports advisor or something of the sort, but even still, I go out of my way at some point during the semester, about halfway through to take time out of my schedule to sit down with every single student in the program, ask them how they're doing, how are academics going, how can I help or how can I be of assistance and trying to connect them to those resources, so I really want to be there to be a champion for the students at the end of the day. That's what my job is. That's what I love about my job the most is being that mentor figure. The more I can do that the better, so my office door is certainly always open.
Dahle: Do you have any programming in place or checks and balances to make sure that they're doing some healthy gaming academic balance? I know sometimes we see labs or arenas that have like the trackers to where they have to scan their card to get in and we can be like, "Hey, I see we're open 74 hours and you've been here for 63 of those hours. Let's have a talk." Is any of that kind of available too?
Kresina: I will say there's no automatic flags that get sent off, but we do collect all of that data. They swipe into the space so we know whether or not they're there. We also have the data that we can pull off the PCs themselves for game time and how much they're spending on that.
But generally, I'm involved and on campus long enough that if students are spending seven or eight hours out of the twelve hours we're open that day and it's like every Friday, I can kind of tell something might be up and I'll probably have a sit down conversation with them, especially if it's someone that is a part formally of the program.
The ones that are coming in as casual gamers and aren't really engaged with the program, whether it be our teams or our broadcast program, or what have you, I generally don't go out of my way to sit down with them. I just don't know them very well, right, at all, but certainly the ones on our teams I try to do my best to make sure that we're holding things there, and the program does have an academic standard where we require a minimum GPA of all of our students that are competing, the same as athletics does, the same as student employment does, and the same as every other campus division here at UW Green Bay.
Dahle: Good. Good. I like to hear that. I think that's something that has become more of a main mainstream effort I think in scholastic esports is that minimum expectation of what you have to have as a student first and then a student athlete second. It hasn't always been that way, so it's been a welcome change in my opinion.
As we're kind of talking about academic success here, I know you're still relatively new into your position, so you maybe don't have student alumni success here, but can you kind of briefly talk a little bit about some of the futures that your players are pursuing while they're at the university, and then, the second part of that question is, as you've come through the ranks through a collegiate program yourself, can you talk about how your program that you participated in has been either preparing you or your peers as well to enter the job market essentially after graduation?
"There's certainly opportunities that exist and parallels you can find in our interdisciplinary field that esports is."
Kresina: Yeah, we have students all over the place, whether it be in business and actuarial science to human biology to engineering, to English and strategic writing and things like that. So we really have a wide variety of students involved and engaged in the program.
I don't think anyone or there aren't many, let's say, that are trying to do an esports career full-time or something once they leave the program here, but I think to that end there are certainly opportunities where students can take what they learn within the program here and apply that to working in small groups on in whatever office they end up in or just whatever team they end up on in their career because teamwork is going to be a vital part of that.
Additionally, you mentioned some of my previous experience. I'm really excited to launch our broadcast program in case you can't tell, but brought that up a couple of times. I was a student broadcast manager for the Ohio State esports programs thing there, and during that time, I actually got to work with two interns, one of whom currently works in, like for a local news station behind the scenes there and has some experience doing that, and I think a large part of one of the reasons why he got the role was because of his knowledge of how the esports broadcast world worked and that it was quite easy to apply that into the real world newsroom setting, so I think that's one of the things that he was pretty stoked about coming right out of graduation.
There's certainly opportunities that exist and parallels you can find in our interdisciplinary field that esports is.
Dahle: I will give a shout out as well because I know in February Green Bay also hosts the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Awards as well, so just a shameless plug here. Any high school or college student that’s doing broadcasting, you can submit your clips, your player interviews, and all that to those awards in February, and it's typically hosted at Lambeau Field.
Again, I've made this pretty well known. I'm jealous of everybody that gets to go because it's always on our state championship weekend and I never get to go, and my students always bragged about how cool of an experience it was, so one of these years I'm hoping that I get to go.
Is there anything that you would like to either talk about or to highlight here as well as you've been transitioning into this program? I'll just throw it on to you if there's anything that you would like to discuss, or even if there's questions that you want to throw my direction, too. I'll give you a moment to air your side of things, too.
"I also bring it up as it's an opportunity for our college students to be involved teaching the next generation of gamers just as much, and I think that is a unique opportunity as well..."
Kresina: Yeah, sure. I mean, first of all, you mentioned events coming up. We're really excited to be hosting the WIHSEA State Championship in the winter here. That's coming up on the calendar, so, if you make it there, you'll be able to come up and visit campus at that point, so we're excited about that.
I also want to do a brief shout out of our summer camps. It's still a growing program. We've been doing the middle school summer camp now for two years and hopefully this summer we'll look into doing a high school boot camp, something that's more targeted for students competing in WIHSEA already that might want to get a little bit of additional experience, meet other people and just get a feel for what campus life is like in general in the first place in a very abbreviated setting. I don't have details to share on that now, but it's something that we are looking at doing in the future, so, if you are interested, be sure to stay up to date on our website, as we'll be sure to post information over there, when we do.
I bring the camp up not only because I think maybe some students here might be interested in attending, especially if you live in the 16 counties that UW Green Bay serves, but I also bring it up as it's an opportunity for our college students to be involved teaching the next generation of gamers just as much, and I think that is a unique opportunity as well where we ask some of our student employees to help out at those camps and get a sense for that, so we have a couple, I mean to your point about educational pathways, we have a handful of elementary education folks that enjoy that environment and have enjoyed working with our middle school kids during the summer camp then.
It's kind of another fun little thing that we also do and get to look forward to every summer, so hopefully we'll have more details to share on that in the future here soon.
Dahle: And I will make sure to have a link to your website in the YouTube description here as well too, so there will be easy access for people that are interested in learning more.
I love the idea of summer camps. I've been seeing them starting to pop up around the state and it's, again, if these existed for 14-year-old Mike what would I be doing with my life, so I greatly appreciate the positive impact and that you're then also working with your local communities in order to provide more opportunities. I think our colleges are doing a good job in this state in order to showcase and get students more involved with this, and so I just wanted to say thank you.
Kresina: Yeah, no, more than happy to. It's fun to do. It's a long week, but it's a lot of fun to put together and see the students who might not have been otherwise supported, especially the middle school campers up to this point. I'm really excited to bring that to high schools as well.
Also just wanted to shout out, I know that personally I'm not the most present in terms of recruiting events or visiting state championships or things like that, but if there's ever any questions, the email address you can best reach me is esports@wgb.edu. I just wanted to shout that out. More than open to answer whatever questions might come up. Whether you're a parent that might be looking to send their student here, or a high school program that wants to try to do a field trip, or something of the sort. I know we've tried to do that kind of thing in the past, and sometimes it's fallen through, mostly on my end, but you'll forgive me for only being a year old in this position, so more than happy to answer any inquiries that come my way. Don't take my absence, I suppose, from recruiting events as very intentional. It's just not a priority for us at the moment, but if there's ever any question or interest, feel free to reach out.
Dahle: Awesome. Well, Kenneth, that's all that I have planned here for today, so I wanted to thank you again for sharing about your program and your experience. I'll give you another quick blurb if there's anything that you want to shout out as well. Otherwise, I thank you very much for joining us today and I appreciate your time.
Kresina: Yeah, thanks for having this. This is a fantastic little show you're doing here, Mike, and I really appreciate your job in connecting colleges and high schools here across the state.
