On Friday, October 14th, several members of the FHS Trojan Esports Club traveled to Marshalltown Community College for a history lesson. This history lesson was not quite a traditional lesson that you might expect. Instead, it featured Fairfield resident, Walter Day, and was about his journey as he became the "Father of Esports". This was a history lesson that was completely relevant to their passion.
Day was invited to speak at MCC as a part of their new Esports program, but especially as a resource for their new Esports Degree. Walter spoke about how his journey started when he opened the Twin Galaxies Arcade in 1981. Many individual arcades has local leaderboards with high scores on their machines. However, it seemed that nobody was keeping track of national or world records on these games. After a few phone calls, Day found out that people would call companies asking, but the information was not there.
In short, Walter put his name and number out there and began keeping track of this for the world.
With out the efforts of Walter and his Twin Galaxies Arcade, our students may not be able to enjoy the competitive spirit of esports, the relationships they are able to build with other students with like-minded interests, or college scholarship opportunities.
After the presentation, everyone in attendance was invited to tour the MCC Esports arena, visit with Walter and college coaches, as well as get autographs and photos with the true "Father of Esports".
