[Oops]January - Samsung KHAN Teamcoach

[Oops]January - Samsung KHAN Teamcoach - Article

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Carnac

Germany / USA16648 Posts

February 06 2006 21:35 GMT

Found this on Playsc.com and thought it might interest at least a few of you

It's apparently a Korea Times article.

[edit]Added some Pics from FiFo:

StarCraft Legend Coaches Gamers - Samsung Khan ProGame Team Coach Kim Ka-eul

'Uri aedul (my boys).' That's what 27-year-old Khan team manager Kim Ka-eul calls her players. 'My boys are so nice, polite and cute' she says, in the same way a mother boasts of well-behaving sons.
In fact, she is the guardian of Samsung Electronics Kahn. Despite being only three years older than the oldest player in the team, none of the players would dare defy her because she is, in short, a 'StarCraft' legend.

'I want people to see me as a player-turned coach, not as just a woman coach.' Kim told The Korea Times last week while the team was on a sweet, one week off-season vacation. 'I have told the boys don't think I am a girl. I made the boys to call me 'coach' not 'nuna (sister).'

Kim is one of the few first-generation gamers who took gaming as a profession. Then she became the first and as of yet, the only player-turned manager in the 'StarCraft' league by taking the job at Khan, one of 13 professional computer gaming clubs in South Korea, which competes in the 'StarCraft', 'WarCraft' and 'FIFA Soccer' leagues. She also is the only female computer-game coach in South Korea.

Having started her career in 1999, Kim was simply invincible in women's leagues, winning countless titles and she played quite well against male gamers, too. Though she had retired from playing and became the coach of Khan in 2004, Kim still gets great respect from fans for showing that women can and do play games like men do, or even better than men.

Among 13 professional gaming clubs registered at the Korea e-Sports Association Kim is the only manager who has experience as a player. The rest of the managers, all men, are mostly hired from the entertainment business with little knowledge on computer games. Eventually, the male managers tend to care more about business than gaming, and in most cases their main mission is getting good sponsorships from companies.

Kim says she is different, as she is trying to focus more on how to win matches than how to make money from the players.

'We don't pay big money to buy star players like other teams, and we are not trying to use the club to make money' she said. 'Our club is more like a membership of gamers. I try to train young people, teaching them not to be spoiled and to make them role models for other young people.'

Changing Course of Life

When she was young, she was smart and fond of math so she decided to major in engineering at university. Though, unlike other girls of that age, she also liked playing video games. When she was a sophomore in Hanyang University in 1998, she won her first 'StarCraft' title and that decided the rest of her life. She became a professional gamer, also known as an e-athlete. (Her school is famous for producing talented engineers and talented athletes as well. It is also the alma mater of major league baseball pitcher Park Chan-ho.)

'You know, it was a perfect condition to play computer games in college. It was all boys there' she said. 'One of my seniors suggested that I participate in a 'StarCraft' tournament and I won it. On the podium, I thought I would stop studying and make gaming my job, but I wouldn't tell my parents. Later, they found out when they saw an interview article about me in a newspaper they subscribe to.'

Her mother, who wanted her daughter to be a dentist was of course concerned about her daughter's decision and she still is, Kim said. 'But my father has supported me. He is a really cool and nice person, and he said that I should do what I really wanted to do.'

After playing for Khan until 2002, she returned to school to finish her studies. Meanwhile, the management at Samsung Electronics, that owns Khan, offered her a job as manager (head coach). She gladly accepted.

Kim says the coaching job at Khan is not very different from that of coaching traditional sports. During the off-season, she manages the players' schedules and trains them up-close-and-personal at their clubhouse in southern Seoul. And when the season begins, she writes rosters and works on battle strategies day and night.

In games, she sits on the bench with her players at her side and gives instructions between rounds, just like a baseball coach in the dugout yelling at players between innings. She also gets quite a good salary from Samsung, which is 'much more than the average salary for office workers of her age' company officials said.

With such an atmosphere, Kim believes that the computer gaming, or the 'StarCraft' league at least, deserves to be called a matured spectator sport.

'StarCraft' is very much like hockey' Kim said. 'People love watching hockey on TV but not many people actually play hockey. Same with 'StarCraft'. It’s an old game and not many people play it these days, but they enjoy watching it pretty much.'

Future Goals

This winter, Kim has one more reason to be proud of her 'boys'. Khan went to the finals of the 'StarCraft' ProLeague and ended as runners-up two weeks ago. Though they lost a 2-0 lead early in the finals and were finally beaten 4-3 by rivals, T1. Still, Kim is content with the result because her team did it, even without a high-salaried player.

'Well, we should do better in the Grand Final' she says briefly, though smiling.

The playoff series of Grand Finals starts this Wednesday, where her team will compete with three other clubs for the ultimate crown of 2005. And she sees it as a chance to prove it was the right decision for Samsung and Khan to have picked her as their coach, in other words, to have hired a 25-year-old girl as the coach of a club owned by a 60-trillion-won conglomerate.

'I wish my career could be a role model to professional gamers. Pro gaming is still a very difficult profession and it has a very short lifespan. When a player's career is over, some of them become broadcasters, umpires or game map designers. But there are not enough post-career jobs available for the players yet' she said. 'I wish I can show them a new career path, that a player can be a good manager.'