Opinion: NMAA right to tighten sportsmanship rules

Esports is a good example of what’s wrong with our world today and what the schools are doing right about it.

In case you haven’t heard of it, at the middle and high school levels, esports is basically video gaming as a competitive team. Some call it a “mind sport” along the lines of a board or card game, taking its place as one of many “cybersports” online.

Regardless of how you cast it, esports is growing in popularity in schools around the country. In 2019, the New Mexico Activities Association sanctioned esports as an official activity in the state’s public schools, with competitive play and state tournaments beginning in the latter half of the 2018-19 school year.

Not surprisingly, participation grew during the covid pandemic, when physical sports were severely inhibited or canceled outright. But esports’ growth is owed to much more than that, not the least of which is the fact that today’s young people spend more time in front of a computer screen than they do on playground equipment outside.

If you ask me, that’s a big reason for the mental health crisis our younger generations are facing.

Study after study is finding that social media and other internet amenities are hurting young people in their heads. Even their cognitive reasoning is being affected. Gone is “linear” learning, such as what you’ll find in a good book; now it’s “bits and bites” gleaned from a Google search.

Such realities place our public school educators in a position where they must adapt, and esports is a way to engage young people in an activity they’ll embrace. And it has some positive benefits, teaching teamwork, collaboration, discipline, and other valuable life skills and experiences.

Plus, making esports a school-sanctioned competition brings even more to the table, as an esports coach explained in a recent article by reporter Juno Ogle in the Silver City Daily Press. In it, Silver City coach Javier Ledesma pointed to the significance of NMAA getting behind esports as a sanctioned competition:

“That means your grades must be up to par, you must have attendance, and the day of game day, you must be there,” he said, adding that players are also subject to NMAA sportsmanship rules, which were tightened up earlier this year.

“Gaming has a tendency of being a bit aggressive in your talking with the people,” Ladesma said. “As per the new NMAA rules, we’re not allowed to do that. If you do that, we get penalized.”

If you ask me, the NMAA was right to tighten up its sportsmanship requirements, and doubly right to apply them to esports.

Things are not like they used to be — there are fewer physical challenges and more mental challenges for young people today. Our schools must keep up with the challenges of the here and now. Simply “getting back to the basics” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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