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Teeny Bopper Tourney

Kevin Howe/stringer photo

One of the 64 teens competes in the Guitar Hero III competition during a tournament qualifier event at Brandon Library. The top 2 players from Guitar Hero III and Dance Dance Revolution from this event won a prize and a seat in the grand tournament to be held at MOSI on 3/1/08.

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By LAURA FRAZIER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 23, 2008

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BRANDON - On one side of the building at 619 Vonderberg Drive, library patrons spoke in hushed tones and read silently under bright fluorescent lights. Through the lobby and past two sets of doors, the lights were dimmed and the curtains drawn.

Brandon Regional librarian Stacey Jurewicz grabbed a microphone, hopped onstage and yelled to an excited crowd, "Is everyone ready to rock?"

Kids in the audience responded by waving their illuminated cell phones in the air.

More than 100 teenagers gathered Feb. 16 at Center Place Fine Arts and Civic Association, which shares the library's building, to compete in or cheer on others in an electronic gaming competition. The wildly popular interactive video games "Guitar Hero III" and "Dance Dance Revolution" took center stage.

"My brother is up there! Go Crunchbite!" shouted Alexander Mikos, 13, as he cheered on 16-year-old Peter Mikos by calling out the code name he uses.

Alexander marveled at his brother's virtual guitar performance.

"Look at his score. He's really good," he said.

The Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System organized the "Guitar Hero III" and "Dance Dance Revolution" gaming tournament to celebrate its second annual Teen Tech Week.

The top four challengers from the preliminary qualifying event in Brandon, along with the top four from six other qualifiers held this month at other Hillsborough libraries, will advance to a grand championship March 1 at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa.

Jurewicz said competition organizers hoped to entice young people who might not otherwise set foot in a library.

"We want to do anything we can to get teenagers into the library," Jurewicz said.

About 65 gamers ages 13 to 18 signed up to play "Guitar Hero III," a video game in which players use a guitar-shaped controller to pluck, strum and riff in time with notes that scroll on a screen. A little more than a dozen teens signed up to play "Dance Dance Revolution," commonly known as DDR, in which players synchronize dance moves played on a screen by pressing, tapping and stomping their feet to the beat on a touch-sensitive dance pad.

Grant Burris, 14, said almost everyone he knows at Mulrennan Middle School in Valrico plays "Guitar Hero III."

"It's fun, and it gets us on our feet instead of just sitting around," Burris said.

Jonathan Managad, 13, said his favorite song to play to is "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson.

"It seems very gentle, but it's awesomely difficult," he said.

Christian Padgett, 16, whose code name is "C-Dub," got a real guitar last summer. He said "Guitar Hero" helps him improve his techniques.

"My cousin got the game, but it's at my house all the time," he said. He said he plays with neighbors and sometimes family members.

"My sister tries to play, but she stinks," he said. "My dad plays, too, but when I try to help him, it just kind of messes him up."

Denise and Kelly Green cheered on their favorite guitar hero - their 14-year-old son, Kevin.

"The game is great. It introduces musical instruments to some children who don't want that 'band student' stigma," Kelly Green said. He said he particularly likes the third version of "Guitar Hero," which is chock full of classic rock songs he remembers from way back when. Think Foghat, the Rolling Stones and Deep Purple.

"When I first heard Kevin playing 'Smoke on the Water,' I went in the room and said, 'Please don't ruin this song ... please get better at it.'"

Andrew Price, 17, and Zach Forrest, 18, home-schooled students who are also enrolled at Hillsborough Community College's Brandon campus, had plenty of practice before the competition. They are members of a club dubbed E-Gen, short for electronic generation, which meets weekly at HCC to play "Guitar Hero III," "Rock Band" and other games.

"If you can plug it in, we've probably played it," Forrest said.

Julian Alayon, 16, the first-place winner in the DDR challenge, started a similar club three weeks ago at his school, Tampa Bay Technical High School. He said more than 30 kids signed up the first week the group met.

"I have to give a shout out to Middleton High School because they had a club there and they donated two mats to get us started," Alayon said.

Jurewicz said the response to the competition was terrific.

"We still have several events to go, and it's definitely building," she said. "Brandon just took off. It was beyond our dreams."

AND THE WINNERS ARE ...

"GUITAR HERO III"

Andrew Wallace, aka "Papa A"

Anthony Shaffer, aka "Shaffer"

"DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION"

Julian Alayon, aka "maxninja"

Shelby Crookston, aka "Tarzan Danger Powers"

The top four contestants from the teen gaming tournament Feb. 16 in Brandon, along with four each from six other contests held throughout the county, will advance to the grand tournament March 1 at the Museum of Science & Industry in Tampa. Registration is open for the last two qualifying competitions at 1 p.m. today at Jimmie B. Keel Regional Library, 2902 W. Bearss Ave., Tampa, and 1 p.m. Monday at the Southshore Regional Library, 15816 Beth Shields Way, Ruskin.

For information, go to www.hcplc.org and click on "teens."

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523 or lfrazier@tampatrib.com.

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