Oklahoma Scholastic Esports started out as Western Oklahoma Esports in 2019. It was founded by Brian Morris, who currently serves as its executive director. During the 2019-2020 school year, Morris set out to create an esports league that was designed for student success, growth, and opportunity.
He first experimented with this idea at Canute High School, where he decided to have an intramural type of esports league that just involved local students. Following this effort, word got out and eventually Morris, his superintendent, and the Merritt Public Schools administration met to discuss the possibilities of expanding the program. Out of this meeting, the 5-County Esports League was born.
The original plan was to include schools from the five counties surrounding Merritt and Canute. However, this idea would be short lived and Morris officially changed the name to Western Oklahoma Esports with a vision of bringing esports to every school in Western Oklahoma. Morris would go on to have countless meetings with superintendents across Western Oklahoma and even had an Oklahoma senator sit in on one of the meetings.
Everything was ready to go for a full season, but in the spring of 2020 COVID-19 shut every district in Oklahoma down, pushing the official launch date of Western Oklahoma Esports back to the new school year in August 2020. At the end of August 2020, Western Oklahoma Esports and Brian held its first tournament. Eleven Schools had signed on initially, but two decided to drop due to not being able to support their programs with a coach.
This left nine schools involved in the league who continued to play throughout the 2020-2021 school year with April 2021 being the first ever High School State Championship for esports in the games of Fortnite, Rocket League, NBA2K, and Madden. Morris set out to make Season 2 even bigger, and after consulting many people, he decided it was time to change the name to Oklahoma Scholastic Esports, so that it represented the entire state of Oklahoma and all of its.
Morris also recruited some amazing people to the OKSE Advisory Board, naming Mike Shipley and Tyler Gray assistant executive directors while also having a directors advisory board. With Shipley and Gray on board, OKSE grew from nine schools to 37 for its second season which launched in August 2021. OKSE had its second Oklahoma High School State Championship on April 1, 2022. As of this writing, OKSE is over 250 schools strong, and still growing!
As of August 2023 Oklahoma Scholastic Esports is the first 501.3C non-profit Youth Esports Organization in the state of Oklahoma that serves 4th through 12th grades and provides a State Championship Experience for those students as well.
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