With the postponement of sports and other activities due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Wilson High School has found alternatives for athletes and gamers to stay involved.

The school hosted a tournament that is centered around the highly popular sports video game, NBA 2k20, which is one of the more recent installments of the historic video games franchise.

The idea of the tournament came during a meeting where Dylan Bernstein, current Governor of Athletics, and Activities Director Erin Fekjar discussed how to proceed with athletics while ironically being in a position where athletics seemed nearly impossible. 

“She wanted a way to bring Bruins together, and when she brought up the idea of a tournament, I immediately thought of 2k, and my athletics committee and I got right to work,” Bernstein said. 

The tournament was then promoted all over social media and was included in weekly bulletins.  

As expected, the tournament had a large turnout as approximately 44 players signed up for the tournament with 17 players playing via Playstation, the other 27 competing via Xbox.

There was no particular seeding as players are given a random opponent and it was up to the individual and their opponent to determine a game time that best fits both players’ schedules. 

The rules were simple. Students played four, five minute quarters that took place in a quick play game, whoever won advanced and submitted their scores to Bernstein every Sunday.

There were two brackets: one for the playstation players, the other for xbox players. The winner of each bracket received a 20 dollar gift card to either Xbox or Playstation services. 

Missed sign ups? Liked the idea of the tournament but maybe just not the game? No need to panic or feel like you missed out on an opportunity– Bernstein made it clear that this was just the first of many tournaments to come in the future. 

“We didn’t get as much follow through from our signees from this tournament, so we’re going to work tirelessly to come up with ways to keep participants engaged,” Bernstein said. “The next tournament will probably be Madden.”