Welcome to the Weekly Spotlight, where you can grab all the important info about on-campus organizations in one easy place.

This week we spoke with Kyle Wehrs, president of College Gaming League — Boca Raton campus’s one and only video game organization over the last eight years with over 50 active members and a variety of different consoles, games and tournaments for its members.

UP: What are the most popular games in the CGL?

KW: The most popular games would be “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” “Project M” and “[Super] Smash [Bros] 4.” We also have some people that play “[The Legend of] Zelda: Twilight Princess” and “[The Legend of Zelda:] Ocarina [of Time],” stuff like that. “Super Mario Maker” is also a big hit. On occasion, we have some “Dance Central” people.

UP: Why is “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” a 15-year-old game, still popular within the club?

KW: It’s because, though it is old, it’s very different, it is technical, it is demanding, and it has an exceptional amount of depth that the other ones don’t have, objectively. It’s also got a community that’s lasted a long time. It’s very hard to play and that’s a nice appeal to it … Those games [newer “Super Smash Bros.” titles] are easy to learn, hard to master, while this game is hard to learn, hard to master. To some, that would be appealing.

UP: Does CGL provide the games, consoles and televisions available at the Student Union?

KW: We bring the games — there are some games they [the Student Union] have, but “[Super Smash Bros.] Melee” and the GameCubes and Wiis, those are all ours. The union has one Wii, one Xbox 360 and a PS3, but I think the Wii doesn’t work anymore.

UP: What about the consoles at your weekly meetings? How does the club get those?

KW: We either get them through membership fees, they are basically donations to the club …  And we also have donations from people who say “I just want to get rid of this,” and they give it to the club. Most of it came from our first president, Charlie [Park].

UP: What consoles does the CGL provide at its weekly meetings?

KW: We have Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), GameCubes, Wiis, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Sega Genesis, Atari, Xbox, Xbox 360, those are the main ones.

UP: There used to be a large “Magic: The Gathering crowd,” as well as other similar card games, but recently they haven’t been around. What happened?

KW: We used to, but then they started meeting at someone else’s house. That was before my time [as president]. Of course, they are always welcome to come.

UP: Does your club run tournaments? What are they like, and do you give away prizes?

KW: Yes, we do. We mostly offer “[Super Smash Bros.] Melee” or “Project M” tournaments. Prizes are kind of tricky, because the school is kind of weird about that. We have to have a small pot bonus, where you pay to enter and if you get top three, you get a percentage of whatever the pot is. We also give away T-shirts, and if we have extra pizza we give that away as well.

UP: Why is FAU “weird” about tournaments?

KW: The council student organizations give us money to spend on food stuffs, or some merchandise. The problem is that they don’t like to buy stuff that are prizes because the money that you spend is supposed to be for the public, and if you’re buying prizes then it’s not public, it’s for a small group of people or one person.

UP: Do you have any future events planned?

KW: We have one coming up, but I can’t devolve details yet because I still have to talk to my officers about it, but yes, one is coming up either in late February or early March. It will be an event-tournament.

UP: Is there anything about the CGL the average student would never guess?

KW: Most people [at the Student Union] play “[Super Smash Bros.] Melee” and they are always competitive, loud and yelling. Not nice stuff — even though they’re joking, from an outsider it may seem not nice. And so sometimes people say “I don’t want to go to that because that’s bad.” But in actuality, most people that go to the union don’t actually go to CGL.

It’s very community-based rather than what it appears to be on the surface, which [is] very competitive-based. So even if you’re not a super competitive gamer you can still show up and you’ll still have as good of a time as a competitive gamer.

UP: Where and when does the CGL meet?

KW: We meet every Friday at IVA South’s multipurpose room, that’s Innovative Village Apartments South, from 7 p.m. to midnight.

UP: Is there anything else you would like to let new or prospective members know?

KW: If you like video games, if you like games, if you like a fun community who also likes games, I suggest that you come out to IVA South on 7 p.m. every Friday, follow us on Facebook for updates concerning schedule changes and events, and I’ll see you there!

Brittany Ferrendi is a staff writer for the University Press. If you would like to contact her regarding this or other articles, email her at [email protected].