Forget football. College students are scoring big with esports.
Sean Ey’s left hand clicks a computer keyboard with the adroitness of a court reporter taking notes. His right hand cups a mouse that his fingers tap with equal deftness.
He is playing a video game as a soldier hunting artificial intelligence-generated enemies inside an empty airplane. They trade fire with heavy machine guns until his avatar is felled. His PC screen taunts him with the words, “Mission Lost.”
Mr. Ey isn’t home playing among friends. He is at college, flanked by coaches who steer thousands of dollars toward his education each year to play video games for them. Mr. Ey, a junior computer science major at Arcadia University just outside Philadelphia, is part of the rapidly growing collegiate esports world.
“I’ve played video
