Skye Canyon resident finds inspiration from his son’s e-sports success
By Kirk Kern
Morris Jackson thought he had his son Jaden all figured out. The younger Jackson was a standout athlete—football, wrestling and track—for Arbor View High School when he approached his father with a proposal.
Approaching his senior year in 2022, Jaden asked his dad if, upon accomplishing two lofty goals in football and wrestling, he could skip track and field and focus on e-sports.
“He came to me and said, ‘Dad, I don’t like track. Plus, I want to get ready for football when I go to college.’ He was like, ‘If I lead the state in sacks and if I make it to state in wrestling, can I play Overwatch instead of running track my senior year?’”
“I said, ‘You know, if you can do those things and get straight A’s, you got a deal,’” said Morris, a Skye Canyon resident. “I was just impressed he came to me with a contract and had key performance indicators (KPIs).”
What Morris Jackson didn’t know about his son, however, was that he was really good at the video game Overwatch—really good.
By the time he made his proposal, Jaden had reached the level of “Celestial” player in the game, which meant he was in the top 1 percent of all players in the world. And when he led the state in sacks that year and competed in the state tournament in wrestling, Morris let him skip track and field and focus on gaming.
“I still have a picture of him with his arm around me after the wrestling finals and he’s saying to me at that time, ‘So, I can play Overwatch now?’” Morris said.
Fast forward three years, and now Morris is heavily involved in e-sports. He recently took ownership of a company called Valhallan E-Sports Training, which has franchises across the country. He initially purchased and opened a Las Vegas franchise. He bought licenses for 20 locations and opened two others in seven months before eventually deciding he wanted the whole business.
“I realized that the guy who owned it didn’t really believe in the concept,” Morris said. “He believed in opening as many locations as he could in terms of franchises to sell it. So, in my opinion, he was in it for the wrong reasons—to cash out. And I’m sitting there going, ‘No, this is something special. This is like the Little League of baseball. Like you’re creating the UFC governing body for mixed martial arts.’”
What Morris found was that despite e-sports being one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, there was no foundational youth level to bring kids together. There is no Little League baseball or Pop Warner football equivalent.
“There’s a big gap there,” he said. “More and more kids are gaming at a higher rate than ever before. The age is getting younger and younger. The age for digital literacy used to be eight and nine, and it went to seven or six. Now it’s the age of five.”
Valhallan E-Sports Training offers just that: training for youths who want to perfect their craft at games such as Minecraft and Overwatch. Its mission is to guide young players to realize their full potential in e-sports and in life. Valhallan is bringing education, life skills and inclusive competition to youth gamers.
Jackson owns five corporate locations, and there are 15 franchises around the country.
In Las Vegas, Jackson’s location is at 500 E. Windmill Road, Suite 100. He chose that spot for his first Las Vegas location, not because it was close to home, but because of the high number of homes and schools within a 10-mile radius. He’s also now teaching an E-Sports Management class at UNLV.
“There are over 300 universities that have converted their E-Sport clubs to sanctioned teams, and that are now offering scholarships to kids in the game to compete in E-Sports,” Jackson said. “I’ve also learned that there are colleges now that are offering an E-Sports management degree. So if a kid wants to get a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in E-Sports management, you could do that now. Like the University of Utah, Boise State, and Syracuse University actually have a degree you can get.”
The Valhallan training program isn’t all just about fun and games, though. Jackson said the skills taught can help kids transition into cyber security, game design and game development. He said some of the kids in the program are learning to build their own games.
“These are kids that are 11, 12, 13 doing these things,” he said.
Jackson, along with his wife Judith, and two sons first moved to Skye Canyon when it opened in 2016. Both sons have since moved on to college and in life. Judith is a Realtor and was the one who made the decision to make the move from Aliante.
“When she first brought it up, I was thinking, ‘Man, this is way out there,’” Jackson said. “But it’s a great area. This is a very close-knit community.”