EPT
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“I’ll be leaving after the post-season ends.”
“What?”
Those were the first words Coach Cho spoke to me after I went to the CJ house to receive some exclusive news. I couldn’t believe it at first. But Coach Cho is not the type of person who would joke about something like this, and I couldn’t help but be surprised and unsettled.
“Is it because of the results? Being unable to advance to KwangAnRi?”
“It’s not because of the results. I just feel like this season will be my last. I talked about this with the team before. So, how about it? Is this good exclusive news? Haha.”
Even though we don’t know the specific details, but what’s amazing is that when talking about his resignation, Coach Cho’s expression didn’t show too much sadness. A lot of people don’t understand just what a coach does exactly, why they get such a high salary. Even though the position of coach is known as an iron bowl position [T/N: Asian expression, meaning a secure, hard to lose job] in e-Sports, there are still many coaches who left because of poor results, and it let people know that it’s not a true iron bowl.
But out of these 12 teams, Coach Cho allowed us to see just exactly what a coach does. It makes us feel that for someone like Coach Cho, it’s not that he needs the position, but that the position needs him. Even stranger, Coach Cho’s desire to resign was known not only to just the team, but his long-time fans too. Thinking back, in the e-Sports coaches’ world, Coach Cho really is the best, and the only.
What kind of impression does Coach Cho leave on people? An unique personality? Cold to the point where if you stuck a needle in him you wouldn’t see a drop of blood, but extra warm and caring to his players? An“if you’re the best under me, you’ll be the best in the industry” philosophy that he uses to encourage and trust his players? All of the above, but more importantly, none of these points are what he brings up himself, but something that people slowly began to see with the passage with time. The impression that Coach Cho leaves on people.
I see a Coach Cho that is very calm and collected, very strict, both to himself and to his players. Coach Cho’s resignation is equivalent to throwing away his iron bowl. Why? After he announced it, I was lucky enough to have a chat with him, but of course, it’s not an interview.
Even though Coach Cho emphasized that the resignation had nothing to do with results, but I personally think that’s still the biggest factor. Coach Cho said “It is because of me that CJ became a strong team, but this is the extent of my abilities.” When the e-sports industry was still in its infancy, Coach Cho was known to us because of the care he exhibited for his players. And Coach Cho raised the biggest champions, including the newest OSL champion Effort and the 18 year old Best Newcomer Snow. [T/N: Savior T___T]
Even though it’s a stupid question, I still had to ask it, what’s harder: winning, or creating the foundation and ability to win? Even though it’s hard to answer, but what’s unchangeable is, Coach Cho perfected the latter, but failed to achieve the former. Coach Cho expressed, he gave 60% of himself to e-sports. From our perspective, it seems low, but we can also see how strictly Coach Cho regulates himself.
“If I gave 80% of myself to CJ, then CJ fully has the potential to win. But I couldn’t do it. Why can’t I start now? Thoughts like these have shown that it’s time for me to retire. As a coach, you need to know when you need to step back, and it’s important to set an example.”
Coach Cho said that he’s very sorry to CJ’s group director. Coach Cho also knows that even though he put in 60%, he achieved 80%’s worth of results, and has always done well in raising strong players. So from the team’s perspective, they really don’t have a reason to impede his resignation.
After the resignation, Coach Cho only has two concerns: because of him, there might be rumors and suspicions surrounding the team and the condition of the remaining players, especially Ma Jae Yoon. “If Ma Jae Yoon’s name gets brought up again because of this, it won’t be what I want. He already has enough to deal with him, I hope people don’t add any more pressure. Even more importantly, I told everyone on the team that they’re the best. Not winning is my fault, not theirs.”
Then, why was it that Coach Cho was unable to put in 100% of himself?
The usually troubled Coach Cho told me: “Thing are complicated now. Things need to be simplified. E-sports was in danger before. If you stop and think about what would happen if the industry collapsed, what would remain? You need to change your perspective, and think about it as a member of the e-sports industry and a businessman, for the answer.”
I’m very sad that someone like this will be leaving. But seeing Coach Cho’s smiling face, makes me think that there’s still something that we don’t know.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Rest for a while.”
“I meant, will you still be involved with e-sports?”
“There’s no definite answer. Right now I just want to rest. But it seems no one around me believes that. I want to rest, that’s why I’m resigning. I really just want to rest, and look over my kids at home, haha.”
“…”
“But even if I don’t say it, I think everyone knows, I’m not the kind of person who can do nothing for too long. The important thing is that there’s a big different between CJ’s Coach Cho Gyu Nam and Cho Gyu Nam.
Coach Cho isn’t a man of many words, which makes people think he’s unapproachable, but now, it seems like the cold Coach Cho is actually very warm and passionate.
“But your resignation will hurt and sadden many fans. After all, your popularity is not insignificant. Will you at least do a retirement interview or something like resigning players? Talk about stuff like memorable moments, players, etc…”
“I know what you mean, but I don’t really like it. If I only look back on past experiences, I wouldn’t be here today. And besides, if I spoke of the memorable moments and players, I wouldn’t resign. I guess this means it’s still hard for me to let go of the coach position.”
In the end, Coach Cho never did an interview, and I couldn’t remember everything we talked about, I just wrote down some of my thoughts.
I walked out of the dorms smiling, and then I collected my thoughts.
“Coach Cho is leaving e-sports by himself. It’s not something to laugh about. Even though we didn’t speak too much, from the few words we had, I can understand that Coach Cho has already seen through the e-sports industry, and he knows that he is one of the e-sports people that he talked about. But he still chose to leave with a smile, and all I can do is smile with him.”
http://fomos.kr/board/board.php?mode=read&keyno=109478&db=issue
http://sc.plu.cn/note/2010-08-04/20502.html
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