Picture this: it’s a freezing cold day in March, the bus is 2 hours late, and you have an Esports competition in a few hours. Not exactly the best start to any day.
On March 1, 2025, the Esports Club had a field trip to the Garden State Esports’ Winter Tournament, which was being held in Georgian Court University in Lakewood, New Jersey. The traveling members included those in the Overcooked division and the Magic the Gathering division – the former was competing in the tournament while the latter was providing moral support. Traveling alongside the Overwatch division of Northern Valley Demarest, the NVOT team was excited and ready for the competition that laid ahead of them, albeit a little tired as well from their 6:30AM bus arrival time.
But 6:30 would turn to 7:00, and 7:00 would turn to 7:30, and worries started to stir between the students and staff. Chaperone and NVOT Esports Coach Jeffery Lai was trying to contact the bus company regarding the team’s bus, while tensions slowly rose among the crew. Some sat on the sidewalk and tried to pass the time with card games like Exploding Kittens, a game in which you draw cards with the goal of “don’t explode,” while others gathered together to play a round of Brawl Stars, which members played in a huddle of phones. Nonetheless, the stress was high for students, as they still had an hour and a half bus ride ahead of them – if there was any bus coming.
As it turned out, neither NVOT nor NVD scheduled the bus, as each school thought the other had scheduled it. Even Lai himself was worried that there was a slight chance the team wouldn’t be able to make it to Garden State Esports at all, let alone with enough time to set up for competitions. Panic was dawning, time was ticking, and hope was dissipating.
However, with a stroke of luck, Lai was able to schedule a bus to the event with enough time to get there and get to the competition. A sigh of relief washed over the crowd, including Lai himself. “It was relieving and filled with gratitude,” he said, “we were very lucky. Because the school secretary was on sight and because of the NVD Bowling Team Coach reaching out to their bus driver, a lot of things had all come together to fix the problem.”
The excitement didn’t just radiate from Lai, everyone on the trip felt a sense of relief when the bus showed up. Freshman Charlie Guglielmini, who was on their first Esports field trip, expanded on this, saying “it was nice to see everyone excited and happy over something like this because it let people know that everyone wants to be there, it gave off good vibes”.
Even if the road to getting there was bumpy, and doubt almost rained on the parade, NVOT Esports were able to get to the event with more memories and quite an interesting experience to talk about. Members in the Overcooked division didn’t advance past the first round, but as senior Jackson Mendoza put it, “it’s not about the destination but about the journey and how waiting for the bus was the most exciting thing that happened”.