Practice player makes $250K score

Published Jul. 20, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

You're wasting your time, they said. "Nerd!" they yelled. Get off the XBox, clean your room and do something with your life.

Well $250,000 later, nobody is telling Justin Chavarria to go play outside.

Chavarria is an Oregon student and one of those college guys who helps the women's basketball team by practicing against it, and he won a national MLB 2k13 tournament, netting him the $250,000 purse and a trip to the MLB All-Star Game in New York.

A sweet comeuppance for the doubters on the women's basketball team.

"They'd kind of make fun of me for being a gamer," the 21-year-old Chavarria told goducks.com. "But when they found out a lot of them were like, 'Wow.' Like everyone else, just, 'No way!' "

He intends to buy a truck, pay for school and invest the money. "If it was during the season, I probably wouldn't have put as much time into the video games," he said. "And probably wouldn't have done as well."

As it was, Chavarria turned MLB 2k13 into a full-time job, spending 6-8 hours a day honing his skills. That was on top of the 10-12 hours a week he spends practicing against the women's basketball team and however much time he spends in class. Newfound wealth aside, Chavarria plans to be back with the basketball team in the fall.

h/t TheBigLead