The NDSU Rocket League Club is a student run organization that loves to play Rocket League. We host tournaments for all NDSU students, as well as have 4 competitive teams that compete against colleges across the nation.
Our Vision
Over the years, we have been exponentially growing as a club. Our vision is to grow NDSU Rocket League into the largest eSports club in North and South Dakota. We strive for our community to be an open and accepting environment regardless of a students skill or time commitment.
The stereotype of the “average gamer” is something we want to break. We are attempting to achieve this by doing outside activities, besides playing video games, that allows students to create life-long friendships and memories.
Inclusivity and fun are staples of our club, and we strive to continue to break the boundaries of what a typical college club achieves. Our community has already achieved more than what was thought to be possible, and we will continue to change the stigma of what typical gamers are seen to be.
NDSU eSports make headlines
eSports has been around for years; however, it is just starting to grow here at NDSU. With lots of effort being put in with our committee members and the grateful support of NDSU, we’ve been able to able to continue to surpass expectations. In our article with KVRR, we were given the opportunity to express ourselves.
History of NDSU Rocket League
Three guys in college with a little extra time on their hands and passion for a video game worked together to bring you what we now call NDSU Rocket League.
2017: Colin Delisi, Hunter Klaes, and Antonio Nhean were three college friends who enjoyed casually playing rocket league together. The three friends wanted to be recognized as an official organization so they registered as a NDSU club and thus the Rocket League club was born. Established in 2017 as part of the 270+ student club organizations at NDSU. With Hunter as president, the original trio built this community upon the core value of friendship. Amongst that, it has helped other people get involved and find a place to either casually play or compete against other teams.
2019: the original members stepped down for the new wave of NDSU Rocket League Players. Trey Dew stepped into the role of president with Nathan Eichacker and Noah Hemmingway joining as executives. These three members were pivotal in growing the club to a size where they were able to start running their own tournament within the club.
2021: Nathan and Noah stepped down from their executive positions. Alex Kotula and Carter Buchta stepped in as vice president and treasurer with the hopes of working under Trey to continue the success of the club. At this point in the club there were over 50 members in the club which made for some phenomenal competition. Going into spring of 2022, the NDSU in house tournament had so many players that they split into two division to make the teams on a more even playing field.
2022: In March, Alex Kotula started brainstorming a tournament that would include all colleges in North and South Dakota. The goal was to take the large Rocket League following that NDSU has and combine it with the rest of the colleges in the Dakotas. Thus Dakota Collegiate Rocket League (DCRL) was born. DCRL aimed to give the opportunity to all college students in the Dakotas a chance to play in a semester long tournament with a chance to play on LAN regardless of skill level.
In fall 2022, DCRL started its first ever season with 72 students representing 10 colleges competing for the first ever DCRL championship. After a successful season, 3 teams, one from each division, hoisted the trophy at the first ever DCRL LAN tournament.
Following the success of the NDSU Rocket League club, as well as a successful start to DCRL, Trey Dew decided to step down as president after an amazing 2 years of leading the club to the state its in today. With Trey stepping down it was time for a new set of leaders to take charge. Alex Kotula is taking over as president going into 2023 with Hayden Whirley as vice president and Carter Buchta staying as treasurer.
2023: Continuing the success from the previous year, the NDSU Rocket League club grew DCRL to a staggering 90 students representing 16 colleges. The addition of 6 more colleges added a bunch more to DCRL and a lot more traction for the NDSU Rocket League club.
Alongside the continued success from DCRL the NDSU Varsity and Junior Varsity teams hit the ground running with an undefeated regular season from the Varsity in both CCL and NACE. Unfortunately from there the Varsity team lost early in the playoffs in NACE and got swept in the grand finals for CCL. Even though there season did not end as they wanted, this showed there were good things to come for NDSU Rocket League moving forward.
After the overall growth of esports at NDSU, Carter Buchta decided to step down as treasurer and start a new adventure with the NDSU Overwatch club. Codie Haasch stepped up to take his place as treasurer alongside Alex Kotula and Hayden Whirley. NDSU Rocket League also created a separate committee for DCRL to try and take a bit of the workload off of the NDSU Rocket League committee and recruited students from multiple other schools for this ever-growing adventure.
In the Fall of 2023, the NDSU Rocket League competitive teams exploded from 2 teams to 4. Having a Varsity, Junior Varsity, Green, and Gold team. Not all teams had a great amount of success but the Varsity team picked up right where they left off and blew away CCL. The varsity team going 5-1 in the regular season only losing to the defending champions Wayne State, wanted revenge going into the playoffs. They blow away the two teams in the quarter finals and semifinals and got the rematch they wanted against the defending champions Wayne State. After a rough start from NDSU going down 1-3 early, they turned it around and fought hard to finally beat Wayne State to be crowned CCL champions. On top of this NDSU Varsity traveled to two other tournaments including Grubby Games at South Dakota School of Mines and the University of Jamestown invitational and got 1st place in both of these. Overall NDSU Rocket League took home 3 first place trophies this semester.
On the other side of NDSU Rocket League, DCRL continued to be the most successful tournament in North and South Dakota growing to 96 students and 19 unique colleges. There were a lot of firsts this season including a fourth division because of the constant growth.
Unfortunately all good things come to an end. This is the last semester Alex Kotula and Hayden Whirley are going to be at NDSU. With all the work that both of these guys did for NDSU Esports as a whole, they will never be forgotten. The constant late nights and dedication from both of them laid an amazing foundation for NDSU Esports to grow in the future. With that being said a brand new group of executives had to step up going into 2024. Codie Haasch stepped up as president with Adam Job as vice president, and Eric Smith as treasurer.