从玩家到教练——一个星际争霸的传奇

waishe

“나의 소년（Uri aedul，我的小子们），”27岁的Khan战队经理金秋天（[Oops]January）是这样称呼她的队员的，“我的小子们都非常不错，懂礼貌而且可爱。”就像一位母亲夸耀自己引以为豪的孩子一样。
　　事实上，她可算得上是三星电子Khan战队的“总舵主”了。 虽然她只比队内年龄最大的队员“老”3岁，但没有一个队员敢不服她。因为她，增经在韩国的星际争霸领域，创造了一个短暂的传奇。
　　“我希望人们当我是一个由选手转行过来的教练，而不是简简单单的一个女教练。”上周，在Khan战队刚刚打完最新一届Sky PorLeague并取得优异成绩后的甜蜜假期中，金秋天对《韩国时代》的记者说道。“我告诉这些小子们‘不要当我是一个女孩’，我让他们叫我‘教练’，而不是‘누나’（nuna，姐姐）。”
　　金秋天是少数的第一代职业玩家。之后，她成为了第一个也是目前唯一的一名星际争霸选手转行的经理。在韩国Khan战队工作的她，手下有13名职业选手，分别涉及星际争霸、魔兽争霸3以及FIFA足球3个电竞领域。同时，她也是目前韩国唯一的一名女性教练。
　　在1999年金秋天的事业初期，她在女子联赛里几乎是无敌的，荣誉无数，而且在与男选手比赛的时候，成绩也都非常不错。虽然之后她退役了并在2004年开始领导Khan战队，仍然有大批的爱好者非常尊敬她，因为金秋天证明了女性同样可以在游戏中做得很好，甚至比大多数男性做得更好。
　　在韩国电子竞技职业联盟（KeSPA）注册的13个电子竞技俱乐部（职业战队）当中，金秋天是唯一的一名有着职业选手经历的俱乐部经理。其它的男性经理们，几乎全部是从娱乐业转行过来的，对电脑游戏所知甚少。最大的区别是，他们注重商业性的东西多于游戏本身，得到好的商业投资是这些男人们的工作重点。
　　金秋天坦言她和别人不一样，她把自己主要的工作精力放在如何赢得比赛进而靠选手挣钱。
　　“我们不会像其它战队一样，花大把的钱购买明星选手，我们也不会试图利用战队本身去赚钱，”她说，“我们战队更像是个玩家俱乐部。我设法去训练年轻的玩家，教授他们比赛技巧但同时还得避免宠坏他们，让他们成为其他年轻人的榜样。”

人生的转变过程

　　在金秋天很小的时候，她就非常聪明并且酷爱数学，所以之后她决定上大学主修工程学。她和同龄的女孩并不太一样，她非常喜欢玩电视游戏。1998年，当金秋天在汉阳大学读大二的时候，她赢得了第一个“星际争霸”冠军，并且这次获胜，也改变了她日后的人生。她成为了一名职业玩家，或者我们可以叫她电子竞技运动员。（汉阳大学盛产天才工程师和天才运动员，韩国职棒联赛著名投手朴璨浩的母校就是这里。）
　　“你知道吗？在大学时候玩电脑游戏的环境真的很不错，全都是男孩子（可以跟我对战）。”她说，“我的一个师哥叫我去参加一个星际争霸的比赛，我去了并且获得了胜利。在领奖台的一刻，我突然有了一个想法：我要暂停学业，去做一名职业玩家！虽然我没有告诉我的父母（也没打算告诉他们），但他们还是在一份订阅的报纸上看到了一篇关于我的采访。”
　　金秋天的母亲，一直希望她能做一名牙医，即使知道了金秋天的想法后仍然坚持自己的观点。金秋天说：“但我的父亲很支持我。他是个非常棒的男人，他说我应该去做我想做的事情。”
　　在Khan战队服役到2002年，金秋天选择了退役并回到学校完成余下的课业。同时，Khan战队的资方——三星电子的管理层提供给了金秋天一份工作，那就是做Khan战队的经理。金秋天非常高兴的接受了这份工作。
　　金秋天认为在Khan战队做经理工作跟在其它传统体育俱乐部做经理并没有太大的区别。在赛季间隙，她要给队员们安排训练日程，并在位于首尔南部的训练室对他们进行单独的封闭式训练。当新的赛季开始后，她将夜以继日的在战术制订和排兵布阵方面进行工作。
　　在比赛当天，她会坐在选手休息区观看比赛并在比赛间歇对自己的队员进行场上指导，就像棒球比赛的时候教练在选手击球前冲着自己的队员大喊一样。她的待遇也非常不错，“比她这个年龄的办公室白领的平均工资要高很多，”公司的官员说道。
　　在韩国的这种游戏气氛下，金秋天相信电脑游戏，或者至少说“星际争霸职业联赛”，完全可以称得上是成熟的体育运动。
　　“星际争霸非常像曲棍球，”金秋天说，“人们非常喜欢在电视上看曲棍球比赛但很少有人真去玩曲棍球。星际争霸也是。它是一个很老的游戏了，而且现在玩它的人也不是太多了，但大家仍然十分喜欢看它的比赛。”

未来的目标

　　这个冬天，金秋天应该更以她的“小子们”为荣了。Khan战队在两周前刚刚结束的Sky ProLeague上杀入了决赛并取得了亚军的好成绩。虽然他们上来先得2分，并经过艰苦的比赛最终仍然以3:4输给了T1战队，但金秋天对于队员们交付的答卷已经很满意了，因为和T1相比，Khan没有一名高薪的明星选手。
　　“我们将在年度总决赛上表现得更出色。”金秋天微笑道。
　　2005 Sky ProLeague年度总决赛的系列比赛将在本周三拉开帷幕，届时她的战队将与另外三支战队进行殊死的战斗以角逐2005年度的战队联赛桂冠（另外三支战队分别是SKTelecom的Team One，KTF的KTF Magic@s以及Greatest One）。金秋天认为这是一个很好的机会用来证明三星和Khan战队选择她作为教练是正确的。或者说，一个市值60万亿韩元的财团雇佣一名25岁的女孩作为旗下俱乐部的教练，是正确的选择。
　　“我希望成为一个职业玩家的典范。电子竞技职业选手跟其它行业还是有一定区别的，它的职业寿命太短了。当一个选手已经不在适合继续比赛后，有人去做了解说员，有人做了裁判，有的则转而研究并制作职业比赛地图。但相对于众多的职业玩家和以职业玩家为努力方向的人来说，对于他们的未来，目前仍然没有足够的就业机会，”她说，“我希望我能为他们展示出另外一条路：一个职业选手同样可以做一名好的职业战队经理。”

－－转载并翻译自韩国时代

文章后的几点问题和看法：
1，原文是英文，水平有限，很多地方翻译得不恰当甚至有误，可以短消息告诉我，我会修改。
2，这是我最欣赏的女子职业玩家。我认为她玩游戏并不是因为可以获得虚荣以及在一个男性完全统治的领域去得到很多精神层面上的东西，而是因为她真正的热爱星际争霸，热爱电子竞技。她是值得尊敬的。
3，具非官方消息，Khan战队的魔兽分队已经解散。
4，三星电子在2006年1月份的市值约为1020亿美元，和本文作者给出的数据不符。也许是我的翻译有误，请指正。
5，期待2005年韩国战队联赛年度总决赛 ~_~


原文：

StarCraft Legend Coaches Gamers

Samsung Khan progame team coach Kim Ka-eul
                          /Korea Times Photo by Lee Sung-oh  

``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 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’’ Pro League 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.”