Playing air guitar always has been a pastime of rock ‘n’ roll fans, but for one University student, it’s destiny.

Jace Bartet, a senior from Winder, recently won the first-ever National Collegiate Air Guitar Championship – a victory that was years in the making.

“I can remember watching MTV when I was a little kid and seeing bands like MAtley CrA�e and Metallica, and I knew I wanted to play something even at that young age,” Bartet said. “I can’t even remember the first time I played air guitar because I was such a little kid. The only reason I remember the first time I rode a bike is because I crashed it, and I didn’t crash anything the first time I played air guitar.”

Bartet’s road to stardom began here in Athens when the Schick Collegiate Air Guitar Tour chose the University as one of 20 college campuses throughout the nation to host a competition. More than 150 spectators turned out to cheer on Bartet and his fellow competitors at the 40 Watt in mid-February.

“One day I just started getting bombarded with e-mails and phone calls from people being like ‘Dude, there’s this air guitar competition at the 40 Watt – you have to do this,’” Bartet said. “And I was like, ‘Yes, I do.’”

Bartet is locally famous for his air guitar antics as well as his erratic and incessant dancing. Twenty-one University students are currently members of the Facebook group “I Love it When Jace Dances at Bolton!,” devoted entirely to Bartet’s impromptu dance routines while working at Bolton Dining Commons.

Whether dancing or playing air guitar, Bartet said his thing is “basically to exude so much energy and explosiveness that it’s almost overwhelming.”

After winning at the 40 Watt, he advanced to the National Collegiate Championships, held over spring break on South Padre Island, Texas.

Bartet’s renditions of “Raining Blood” by Slayer and “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith were enough to win him a free trip to New York City for the U.S. Air Guitar Finals on June 22 at Bowery Ballroom.

“The number-one downfall of most of my competitors is that they rocked out with total disregard of the song,” Bartet said.

He stressed the importance of knowing each song backwards and forwards as well as choreographing air guitar moves, much like a dance routine.

Air guitar contests are judged based on stage presence, technical ability and “airness.” Each competitor performs to a 60-second clip of a song of his or her choice in the first round, and judges choose a song that everyone must perform to in the second and final round.

As the national collegiate champion, Bartet will compete against ten regional winners from across the United States, as well as last year’s champion, Fatima “Rockness Monster” Hoang.

“I’ve seen video of the returning national champion, and I can take him,” Bartet said. “So I guess my hope is that there aren’t going to be any other people that are going to come out of the woodwork and surprise me. I’ve been preparing for this one guy, kind of pompously almost, pretending the national champion will be my only competition.”

The winner will represent the United States at the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland this August. If Bartet wins in New York City, his chances in Finland will be good, as the U.S. and world champions have been one and the same for two of the contest’s three years of existence.

After his success in Texas, Bartet has high hopes for this summer.

“I have what I guess you call a master plan,” he said. “There’s no way I could lose if I pull it off.”

Bartet was secretive about his supposed scheme but hinted at some sort of stage prop that could either win him the competition or earn him a disqualification.

If the prop is ruled out, he may have to rely on his costume – already a favorite among fans – which includes a skin-tight American flag t-shirt and a cutoff denim jacket.

“I also have these fingerless gloves and leather gauntlet,” Bartet added, “and the whole point behind the fingerless gloves is that if I don’t wear some kind of protective guard on my hands, I’m going to rock so hard it’s going to punch a hole through the space-time continuum, and so if I don’t wear those, then I might create a big sucking worm hole that might destroy the universe.

“I don’t want to destroy the universe; I have to rock responsibly.”