Youngbin Chung spent more than ten hours a day playing League of Legends. His addiction got so bad he almost failed out of school. His parents freaked. His life was spiraling out of control.
Now he’s playing video games on a college scholarship so everyone just chill.
A few years later, the 20-year-old from the San Francisco area leads a team of headset-wearing players into virtual battle in a darkened room at a small private university in Chicago. He’s studying computer networking there on a nearly $15,000 a year athletic scholarship — for playing League of Legends, the video game that once jeopardized his high school diploma.
“I never thought in my life I’m going to get a scholarship playing a game,” said Chung, one of 35 students attending Robert Morris University on the school’s first-in-the-nation video game scholarship.
I never thought it would happen either, bro! I would have played way more Madden!
Here’s a little bit more about the world’s greatest college.
Robert Morris, a not-for-profit university with about 3,000 students, believes those are not so different from the skills one uses on a football field or a basketball court and that spending money to recruit these students, too, will enrich campus life and add to its ranks of high-achieving graduates.
Oh man, if I could only go back and do it all over again. Way, way less masturbating and way, way more video games. Actually, maybe I would have been fine if I just spent equal time on both.
H/T CBS Local