The swimming coach who even quit drinking--declaring Park Tae-hwan to be his entire life--and the athlete who focused only on training finally reaped their reward on the morning of Aug. 10, when Park won a gold in the 400m freestyle at the Beijing Olympics.

Coach Roh Min-sang's athletic years were less than outstanding, but he turned to coaching and rewrote Korean swimming history. As the coach of the national swimming team, Roh (52) is the man behind swimming sensation Park, who is called the "pride of Asia." People often compare Roh to a weed, as he became the national team coach solely based on his own ability. He had no people connections or a good background, which explains the doubt and jealousy surrounding him. Now, the fact that his best pupil, Park (20·Dankook Univ.), won a gold and silver in Beijing has brought him his due recognition.


Sincere Leadership

Born in Hannamgdong, Seoul in 1956, Roh was a swimmer even as a child, and he practiced swimming in the Han River. He entered Osan Middle School and Osan High School, renowned for their swimming programs, but failed to stand out as an athlete and eventually quit school. He completed his military service in the Army's administrative unit in Wonju, Gangwon province in 1980 and decided to become a coach and not an athlete. He worked at the swimming club run by Gang Gyeom-il, a famous swimming coach at the time, and was taught by Gang personally.

Roh wanted to realize his own dream through his swimmers. He thought "Even if I couldn't do it, my athlete can." From then on, he began to study. But he had many obstacles to overcome in becoming a coach, the biggest of which was the fact that he had never been a national athlete himself. So there was no way but to study for himself. He gathered as many study books he could. In the past two years since becoming the national team coach, he has bought several million won of books at Kyobo bookstore.

The dozens of books all went into his database. He coached briefly at Banwon Elementary School in Banpo, Seoul and started working at a sports center in Daechidong in 1983. As he climbed up the ranks there, he opened his own swimming club and word began to spread about his sincere leadership. Here at the center, he met with Gang and started coaching. And this was where he also met Park, when Park was just in his 2nd year of elementary school. Park excelled from the following year when he finished 2nd in a freestyle event at a youth championship in Changwon.

Roh has been the national team coach since the 2006 Doha Asian Games. To be exact, he was appointed to the post just before the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in August that year in Canada. It was the first time ever for a high school dropout to win the prestigious post, but his experience and leadership effectively lifted him past other candidates who were impressive only on paper.


Teacher and Helper

Park was lucky to have met Roh. Dr. Song Hong-seon of the Korea Institute of Sport Science said, "Roh has an innate sense regarding endurance." Roh coached Park into a world class athlete for ten years. Park's physique is fit for short races but thanks to consistent, structured training from early on, he has developed endurance like no one else in the world. It takes a long time to perfect endurance in swimming so it's important to stay with the same coach for many years.

Roh is also meticulous about recording each day's training. After each day's session when the athletes take a rest, he pulls out a sheet of paper and writes down all the details of the day's practice. He served in the administrative unit in the military, thanks to which his handwriting is cleaner than a computer printout. His handwritten training logs on Park amounts to thousands of pages. He says the notes are for the future of Korean swimming.

With just a glance, Roh and Park are able to communicate perfectly. Their respective families are also close. One of Roh's cherished treasure is two sweaters that Park's mother Yoo Seong-mi (51) knit for him.

At the pool, Roh is a hardnosed coach but at other times, he's a warm encourager. Just before the 400m finals in Beijing, Roh said to the nervous Park that "the moment you jump into the water, history will be rewritten." He was the teacher who was as nervous as Park and more joyous after his victory. His cheeks are sunken but his eyes are still sharp. Korea now anticipates the duo's next move.