Seven members of MCC team recognized with NJCAAE all-academic honors

Marshalltown Community College (MCC) Esports Coaches Andrew Goforth and Nate Rodemeyer are well aware of the stereotype that gamers are poor students, and it's their intention to do what they can to prove that isn't the case.

On Friday afternoon, seven MCC athletes -- Holly Albertson, Carter Griego, Jacob Janssen, Amber Lawthers, Jahir Monge, Dawson Spiker and Travis Tran -- were recognized during a brief ceremony at the Student Union for receiving all-academic honors from the National Junior College Athletic Association of Esports (NJCAAE).

As Rodemeyer explained, the designation is essentially the same as the academic all-American tag for other athletes, but because the NJCAAE is still so new, they haven't formalized such a recognition yet. The students must play on a team with a winning record and have a grade point average of at least 3.5 to qualify. He also noted that there were 22 total members of the team at the end of last season, and seven of them -- almost one-third -- earned the all-academic honor.

"Almost a third of the entire program hit that marker, which is huge, which is awesome," Rodemeyer said. "It really is a big accomplishment for them to not only compete at a high level in the games that they play but to be able to then keep their grades up and pursue their dreams in looking forward to their futures as well."

All of the individuals recognized competed on teams that finished seventh or higher in the country, and of course, as has been well documented in the T-R and other media outlets, Lawthers won a national championship in Mario Kart.

Goforth and Rodemeyer said a bit about each student, noting that Albertson was the team captain for an Overwatch squad that was ranked seventh in the country, and she had the postseason play of the year featured on social media, helping MCC upset the number one seed.

Griego was on Albertson's team last year and serves as the captain of the Overwatch II team this year, currently ranked number four nationally.

Janssen was on the fourth-ranked Rainbow Six Siege team last year and Rocket League this year. Lawthers is the captain of the Mario Kart team and is leading an undefeated squad while locking in an individual playoff spot again this year. Out of all of the students honored, she was the only one to obtain a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Monge is also a member of the Overwatch II team with Griego and Albertson and is playing on the same team this year. Spiker was on Janssen's fourth-ranked Rainbow Six Siege team last year and is a team captain of the number one ranked team this year. Tran was on the Rainbow Six Siege team and graduated from MCC over the summer.

"The thing about Travis (is) if I've ever, this far in my career, coached somebody that could be a professional gamer, it's Travis," Goforth said. "Travis, in terms of just raw talent of playing video games, is one of the best gamers I've ever seen."

In closing, Rodemeyer congratulated all seven students, remarking that it isn't easy to do what they did, and they should all be proud of their achievements.

"Every single one of these people has been a leader for this program in some way or another and a great role model for what MCC Esports is, and we are so proud of what they have done," Rodemeyer said. "This program would not be what it is today without these seven people up here and all of the other people that compete for us here in the room."

Afterward, the coaches reflected on the aforementioned negative stereotype and how they're working to dispel it.

"A lot of these students just didn't have a motivation because they just didn't have something like this to work towards," Rodemeyer said. "So we're really proud of this specifically because it shows that once they found that motivation, that team to belong to, that thing to work towards, they can be just as strong academically as anybody else on this campus and in some cases, moreso. So that's kind of the big takeaway for us."

And the success here is paying real life dividends for people like Albertson, who got a full-ride scholarship to Simpson College, and Lawthers, who went from a C student to getting straight As and winning a national championship.

"With Esports and good grades together, they can really write their own ticket, which is really awesome to see," Goforth said.

Lawthers credited the Esports program with helping her to take school seriously and do better in the classroom.

"After I started caring about my classes, I actually kind of learned (that) 'Hey, college is kind of fun when you actually care about it,'" she said.