Your first reaction to the idea some North Carolina parents agreed to let their 16 year-old drop out of school to pursue a career in Guitar Hero is likely similar to mine: um, what? I can imagine asking my parents a similar question in 1992. “Mom, Dad, school’s a drag and I think my time could be better spent playing Sonic the Hedgehog.”
That would have been extra stupid in 1992, when competitive video gaming was featured in an obscure movie only kids of video store owners like me actually ever saw. My dad would have laughed me out of the room while telling me to get on the August-heated roof and clean the gutters before I started my homework. Skateboarding would have been a more sensible suggestion among the “bad reasons to drop out of school” choices.
But in 2008, in the advent of Major League Gaming, your first question probably she be something like this instead: How much money’s in it?
For Blake Peebles, it could be a lot, up to $80,000 per year if he’s good enough—if he’s the best, but his parents, as quoted in this article, haven’t mentioned anything about money. Instead, they only say Blake hated school and wouldn’t shut up about it. I wasn’t aware it was that easy. Maybe if I’d ridden my parents enough, I could have talked them into professional TV-watching.
My grandfather was yanked out of school in the third grade to help “man” the potato fields. Lack of schooling didn’t hurt him much. He retired in his fifties—in the 1970’s. Peebles is home schooled, though, not out of learning altogether, and sometimes those home school kids can really kick academic butt when they want to. Sounds like he won’t want to, though, and his parents are fine with that, it sure seems, noticing how happy he is that he doesn’t have to go to school and can stay up all night playing video games.
Yeah, well, who wouldn’t be?
Air guitar contest at my house. Winner gets…a bag of Doritos.
