Video gaming (Photo : REUTERS/Danny Lawson/Pool)
In what could be a sure shot sign of March madness arriving in full swing, Robert Morris University has become the first university to make video gaming a varsity sport.
And, they are offering a Video Game Scholarship.
Popularly called "e-sport", video gaming has often been neglected as an academic distraction for a majority of students who are ten-hours-a-day addicts.
Not anymore.
Meet Youngbin Chung. He missed high grades in high school, as he found video gaming more interesting than maths. His parents were skeptical whether he would ever grow up.
Now, Chung is studying computer networking there in University of Chicago on a nearly $15,000 a year athletic scholarship.
Chung says he got the scholarship for playing League of Legends, the reason for which his high school grades tanked.
"I never thought in my life I'm going to get a scholarship playing a game," said Chung,
Chung is one of 35 achievers attending Robert Morris University on the school's first-in-the-nation video game scholarship, according to The Huffington Post.
Robert Morris, a not-for-profit university having nearly 3,000 students, thinks 'e-sports' should get the respect.
"It's coming; it's coming big time," Associate Athletic Director Kurt Melcher said.
At Robert Morris, video game scholarships can go up to one-half of the tuition and housing, or about USD 19,000.
Robert Morris has spent a whopping USD 100,000 to modify a classroom into a mind-boggling gaming hub equipped with hi-tech monitors, grumpy headsets, and fitting chairs, according to Time.
However, the NCAA thinks otherwise, as does ESPN.
"It's not a sport," ESPN network President John Skipper said in a New York conference.
"It's a competition, right? I mean, chess is a competition, and checkers is a competition. ... I'm mostly interested in doing real sports," he added.
But, "You can't really ignore it," he accepted.
