UC’kombi
In this video, you will meet our president and vice-president, who will share their passion for competitive video games and their vision for the future of the association.
This video format, inspired by Kombini, will allow you to discover the behind-the-scenes of our association and to meet the key people who make Unified Champions such a dynamic and passionate community.
Our president and vice-president will introduce you to their experience within the association, as well as their vision for the future of university esports and our community.
UC’SHOW
In this video, we have brought together some of our most talented and dedicated members to show you everything our association has to offer.
Join our founder, as well as other important members of the association, who will put on a show to showcase the incredible skills of our players. You will find highlights of our esports events and moments of camaraderie!
interview of “chaton”
who are you and what is uc ?
I am Pascal Chatonnay, I am a teacher-researcher at the university and I am the president of the club.
UC stands for Unified Champions, UC is a sports club, an eSport club, a place where we practice eSport, a place where we have a sports project, where we hope to win.
But we also hope to observe everything related to eSport because it is a university project with players who are students, executives, who are also students.
Why ?
The idea? At first, it was to say to ourselves: our students know how to do a lot of things that are not taught at school. That’s it. And often, at the university, we hear that esports are the devil.
Our students play too much, they are not present, and so on. I’m not necessarily in agreement with that. And the idea was to say, OK, let’s try to see what our students know how to do and how we can reinvest their skills within a university activity by valuing these skills.
And the idea is to involve our players in this and to say: here, we value skills, does it have an effect on their academic performance? And it doesn’t seem too bad!
for you, what is esport ?
So that’s a broad question. Can I say that the CEO’s answers are not mine? No, I’m not going to give it (laugh).
eSports, for me, is a competitive practice that brings video game players together around competitions, with local, national or international stakes. There are no fundamental rules that are very clearly defined for eSports, because the rules are somewhat defined by the suppliers, the companies that develop the video games.
So, we are still in a legal no man’s land that is quite difficult. eSports, I think, is a new practice that needs to make its place in society.
It’s already the case, but for example, it is not recognized at the university and the objective of our project is to be able to qualify as an academic activity what eSports is. I don’t know anymore how to ask questions about eSports to answer them!
is an esport association for students important ?
In my opinion, it’s important. They prove it to us by joining us in large numbers, participating in our internal tournaments, and representing us in competitions. What surprised me the most about esports is that as a teacher, we always say that students do nothing but play games and so on. But we realized that students didn’t really have time to play.
When we wanted to organize competitions, the hardest part was finding time to get ten people in front of machines to play together, which is quite incredible from the outside.
So that’s something that seemed really surprising to me. But at the same time, there was a real willingness on the part of the students to participate, and we realized that it was enjoyable for them to have a university structure that recognized their practice.
what are your goals ?
The goal of Unified Champions is to lead the world! But before that, we have a few other objectives: first, there is a sports objective, we want to win, that’s what a sports club is about, so we train so that our teams win. This means that we prepare our teams, coach them, train them, and engage them in competitions where they can win.
There are scientific objectives, meaning that at the university, we question what a eSport team is and how it works, so we study that and produce science based on it.
And then, there is also the objective of having fun, because eSport is great, but when we play together, we can really have fun. We have internal competitions, we have days to meet each other, we have time to live together around our passion.
How to become a volunteer in the association ?
To become a volunteer in the association, the steps are quite simple. First, join us on Discord. There is a link: Discord. Once you have joined us, send us a message saying what interests you and ask any questions you may have.
Don’t hesitate to do so. There is a channel called #on-papote, we are almost always there and we can answer your questions and then offer you missions based on what you want to do!
Becoming a player is a bit complicated because you have to go through a selection process. We already have very, very good players. So there is a bit of a skill level. However, we can find many people to play with. We have a place called #qui-pour-jouer, so there you will be able to find partners who have a good level of skill and whether it’s in LOL, VALORANT, or Rocket League, but also in other games. You will find people to play with!
At the moment, what we are looking for most in the association is staff for our teams, coaches, team managers, sports directors, and why not the desire to open up other games beyond the three I mentioned earlier!
What is your goal at the end of a season ?
Our sports objective, for the moment, is relatively simple. It is related to the “grosse ligue,” a particular championship organized at the French and European level. It is to finish in the last four. So, this objective has been achieved.
In the first split of the season, for those who are not specialists, in the first split on League of Legends (LOL), we had a team that finished in the last four, which was vital for us. We did not expect to achieve this so quickly.
The team was created in May, which means they have existed for about ten months, and two months ago, they finished in the last four: it was extraordinary! The idea is to bring all our VALORANT and Rocket League teams up to this level and to open up new sports as well.
Once we have reached the last four of the grosse ligue, we will consider what we will do next. What are the relevant competitions? I will talk about LOL because it is the sport we are most advanced in at the moment. Our first LOL team is starting the Open Tour, the MasterCard Nexus Tour, which is a competition of a relatively high level, and it is a big challenge for them.
Who is your favorite team at UC ?
Of course, I don’t have a favorite team. I try to watch all the broadcasts of matches and I try to know all the results of all the teams. So I can’t hide that for me, who is extremely old, I don’t always understand everything that’s going on.
I have to admit, the vocabulary is a bit particular, the social practices are also particular, but it’s a real discovery. And maybe my favorite teams are the ones that make the most effort. That’s it, that’s the thing.
What I say to the players who are in the teams is, if I wanted esports to be considered a sport, then let’s behave like athletes, and that’s the challenge.
And from the moment we make the effort to be part of a sports approach, to be an esports athlete, I am totally satisfied.
