Most teenagers his age would be preparing for college or worrying about getting a date for prom. But 17-year-old Juan "Contractz" Garcia has his mind on League of Legends -- specifically, a League Championship Series title and the Rookie of the Split award. While his friends are picking out caps and gowns, Contractz has already graduated and set his sights on his profession of choice: professional video game player.
"I'm not even sure what I did was the right thing. I would be in my senior year of high school right now if I was still in school. Honestly, I'm not sure if missing my senior year and graduating high school early is the right thing to do," Contractz said to ESPN.com. "Overall, I think graduating high school is one of the first priorities before you want to do anything else. And if you're already good enough to go pro, then I'd probably still do it because this is an opportunity you don't get a lot in life."
Back in high school, he lived a fairly normal teenage life: friends, schoolwork, playing video games after school. The only difference is that while others went home and played for fun, Contractz was rising up the League of Legends leaderboards, wowing his friends with how quickly he made it to the Challenger tier, where the top 200 players of each region's server reside. He would play until midnight almost every day, sleep and then go to the school the next day, working toward his future career without noticing it until he started playing in competitive tournaments.
If the age requirement for going pro for the NA LCS were below the current barrier of 17, Contractz probably would have been in the league sooner, playing semi-professionally last year on C9's minor league team. Contractz has been a rare talent in the online North American servers, and teams waited for him to become of age so they could sign him. After helping C9's secondary team, Cloud9 Academy, qualify for the NA LCS this season under the new management and branding FlyQuest, Contractz decided to stay with the C9 organization. He was promoted to starting jungler as his 17th birthday arrived.
Often when players come into the league with buzz surrounding them, their personalities match the hype, with outspoken, challenging players at their position left and right and talking a big game. Contractz, curly-haired with a quiet, friendly demeanor, has been anything but that in his first season. He praises his rivals and appears to take everything in stride. When talking about his ups and downs so far as a rookie, he's introspective, discussing how his performance slipped after a strong start to the season and that he's only now picking his game back up.
Contractz knows that the road to greatness is paved with dips and valleys.
"My mom is really supportive of me," the starting Cloud9 jungler said to ESPN.com. "She watches every single one of my games and congratulates me when I win and picks me back up when I'm down after a loss. Overall, I'm just really glad she's supporting me."
That's who Contractz is. He loves playing the game and is thankful to have the opportunity and family support to make a living out of it. He graduated high school early to make sure he could go for his dream, and being a realist about the future, he says that if his playing days ever come to a close, college applications could soon come after. Until then, though, becoming the best jungler in the world -- regardless of how long that takes -- is his goal, along with helping C9 regain its spot as North America's best team for the first time in two years.
"I just like practicing every single week," Contractz said. "Scrims every single day. Coming into LCS Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and playing professional League of Legends. It's just super surreal. I would have never thought ever in high school that I would be playing pro League of Legends for a living. It's just incredible to me."