High School Starleague announce $20,000 Scholarship Pool for New Season

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

The High School Starleague is an esports organization with a mission to legitimize competitive gaming at the high school level. In their latest endeavor, High School Star League has announced a $20,000 scholarship pool for high school students. Twitch and Newegg have made significant contributions to the pool. HSL holds tournaments for League of Legends, Starcraft II and Dota 2. In a statement provided to onGamers, Tomber Su, CEO of High School Starleague spoke on the scholarship pool.

“With these scholarships, the HSL will usher in a new era of esports where excelling in cyber-athletics will be as respected as excelling in traditional sports.”

Jesse Wang, COO of HSL added,

“Through tournaments and scholarships, we plan to prepare our aspiring and talented gamers for the professional gaming scene, while simultaneously ensuring success in their education and character development outside of the game.”

Both Twitch and Newegg have contributed $10,000 to the scholarship pool.

Some players who participate in HSL events go on to become professional players or top tier amateur players. Nicholas “Gleebglarbu” Haddad currently plays Support for Cloud9 Tempest, who will participate in Riot’s Promotion tournament this weekend. Libo “Xenocider” Chang has gone on to play Terran for Evil Geniuses.

Since launching in 2010, HSL has organized over 15 events with 750 schools in 46 states. This year alone, HSL has grown from 500 players to 4000. HSL also works closely with both school administrators and student run clubs to legitimize eSports as part of a school’s athletics or extracurricular program, as well as teach students to build eSportscommunities at the local level. While primarily a North American organization, HSL is laying the groundwork for an EU expansion in the near future.HSL will be holding its finals for the 2013-2014 season this June in Southern California. All HSL events will be streamed at www.twitch.tv/hsstarleague.