The Lantern Lab

ROCKBEACH ADDED E-SPORTS AS A VARSITY SPORT IN 2008, AND WAS THE FIRST SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY TO DO IT. Not the first to have a club. The first to make it varsity - a roster, a coach, a budget line and a letter. THE DATE IS THE WHOLE POINT. Most universities came to this in the mid-2010s. Rockbeach was six years ahead of that, at a moment when a dean could still reasonably ask whether this was a sport at all. The answer the school gave was that it is founded on being first in a space, that the lighthouse was the first of its kind by some accounts, and that a place which trained keepers before anybody had a word for the job does not need to be talked into a new one. AND THE SAME YEAR IT CUT TWO OF THE OLDEST SPORTS THERE ARE. Men's cross country and indoor track were dropped in 2008. Nobody planned that juxtaposition and nobody has ever been comfortable with it - in one season this athletics department stopped two things people have done since antiquity and started one that had not existed when its current seniors were born. IT IS NOT FOOTBALL AND IT IS NOT BASKETBALL. It does not need to be. It sells out a purpose-built room, it hosts state finals and national championships and global qualifiers, and it is the only thing on this campus that other athletic directors call to ask about.