Rezes Attila

When esports entered PE at ELTE

When esports entered PE at ELTE

In spring 2023 the Budapest University Athletic Club announced that esports would appear in ELTE’s elective PE offer, together with Afterglow. In that announcement I appeared as Afterglow’s executive and 2021 Esports Manager of the Year. I still run the same course today as Attila Rezes.

The idea started from an inter-university esports championship. ELTE had no owner for the topic, but students were interested. We sat down with BEAC. It became an elective sport subject; the first group started in 2022. Since then nearly a hundred students join each year. The course runs online on Discord, in a student-friendly, usually evening slot.

The first sessions are deliberately about a healthy relationship with play. Leisure gaming and elite esports are not the same thing. We talk about toxicity, burnout, physical and mental load. Then the group splits: League of Legends and Rocket League. Progress is welcome, but the point is that people feel good and a community forms. Many sign up more than once.

A typical class has VOD review, live coaching, sometimes a quiz to decide whose game we watch together. It is not a template hour. The coach’s programme and the group’s needs matter. In 2024 we also competed with ELTE at the Hungarian Universities Championship, and the university made the all-time ranking.

BEAC wrote about the launch first. I later described how the course works in more detail for ELTE Online.