AACC requires every student athlete—including esports players—to take a physical exam before joining any sports team.
The school requires athletes to visit their own doctors for physicals before the team’s season begins. The athletes or their health insurance pay for their visits.
“It’s always been a part of the eligibility requirements for participation,” Athletics Director Duane Herr said.
But some athletes said a physical for esports competitors is overkill because the role of the team members isn’t as physical as the activities of players in other sports like basketball or lacrosse.
Esports players compete in tournaments involving video games like Rocket League and League of Legends. AACC adopted esports as an official college sport in 2021.
Hollis Luethy, a second-year mathematics student and esports player, said medical documentation is a good idea for athletes in any sport. But Luethy added, “The physical that [esports players] have right now, I don’t think it’s necessary.”
Spencer Potter, a first-year transfer studies student and esports player, agreed.
“I can understand it being important for actual [health issues], but I think, like, outside of, like, mental health stuff … [it] doesn’t seem necessary for, you know, playing video games,” Potter said.
Potter added: “A lot of issues that I’ve seen through esports and playing with other people is when they have problems with their health, it’s always a mentality thing.”
Luethy conceded, however, that “maybe if you have … hand problems or maybe eye problems, that might be necessary.”
Esports head coach Conway Johnson said esports players are prone to repetitive stress injuries of the hand and wrist.
“Those can become an issue and it’s … the most common esports injury,” Johnson said.
Still, the coach said, “Esports isn’t as prone to … injuries as other sports are because there’s less actual physical movement, [but] esports does have … an athleticism to it.”
Herr said players on all teams have to get physicals.
“Consistency across the board for us,” Herr said. “We treat all of our sports to the same standard.”
“I would be surprised to find out that there’s not at least some level of health documentation required at other colleges to catch things like that,” Johnson said. “You want to know about those things.”
