Image via Maroon Tiger Gaming

By: Daniel Smith, Staff Writer

The rise of esports on college campuses has allowed gamers a place to call home, while having a community of fellow gamers around them. Morehouse has not had a large esports community in recent years until two Morehouse  students took it upon themselves to make this a reality. 

Ezra Jenkins, a sophomore Business Admin/Marketing major from Queens, New York, and Kaleb Howard, senior Business Admin/Management major from Detroit, Michigan are the co-presidents of the Maroon Tiger Gaming. What started out as a small GroupMe chat with 15 people has now turned into a dedicated space for Morehouse gamers to call home. 

Jackson’s goal was to take over the campus for all Morehouse gamers. The rise of esports has recently spread across many campuses resulting in collegiate gaming teams. 

“Maroon Tiger Gaming started out as a call of duty team competing in a call of duty tournament for HBCUs,” Jackson said. However Jackson and Howard saw it as an opportunity to be so much more. 

Jackson and Howard’s dreams have come to fruition thanks to a donation from Intel. Intel is an industry leader in “creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives”.

Intel funded all the hardware inside the gaming lab including PCs and Monitors for gamers to have the optimal gaming experience.

 “Kaleb interned with Riot Games ,known most notably for creating the game League of Legends, he was able to use his connections with people at the company to help make this happen,” Jackson said.  

Howard sent an email to Corey Frazier who is the Senior Manager of Segment Outreach for Intel. The email detailed who they were and what they did as well as their accolades as a team. In the email Kaleb pitched the idea of a gaming lab to Corey Frazier. 

From that point, Frazier sent that email to his teammates at Intel and soon they would approve of the full sponsorship of the Morehouse gaming lab. 

The gaming lab consists of 10 gaming PCs, Nintendo switches,PlayStations and Xbox consoles.  

Maroon Tiger Gaming has earned $250,000 in competitive gaming tournaments since their creation in 2020. 

Additionally, they have had two former members go on to sign $50,000 contracts to play on competitive Call of Duty teams. 

The creation of the Morehouse Gaming lab brings in a new era to the college for gaming at HBCUs and is a testament to the dedication and hard work of Jackson and Howard.

Copy Edited by: Auzzy Byrdsell, Editor in Chief