T1 Coach Roach Announces Temporary Departure

After a wildly successful run at the League of Legends Worlds 2024, T1’s coach Kim “Roach” Kang-hee has announced that he will temporarily be departing from the team. After coaching in the T1 Academy and T1 Challengers, Roach has been coaching this Worlds winning roster for just under 2 years.

In an emotional video posted to the official T1 LoL account on X, Roach confirmed that he’ll be leaving the roster for the time being. He didn’t actually give a lot of details about why he’s leaving other than to fulfil his social duty and we also didn’t get a time frame on when he’ll be back.

When will Roach be back?

Based on the announcement, it seems that Roach will be going to complete his social service in South Korea, which is the alternative for those who are unable to complete the mandatory military service. This usually requires men from the ages of 18-35 to complete 18-21 months of service. So it’s likely that we’ll be waiting some time before we see Roach coming back to competitive League of Legends.

League of Legends Legacy

This year’s Worlds Championship was one of the best in League of Legends history. Even as someone who isn’t the biggest LoL fan, it was a truly stunning final. T1 facing off with BLG in the best of 5 that actually went to 5 games was one of the most nail bitingly exciting finals of the year.

The role of the coach is often underrated in esports since we don’t see much more of them than them pacing back and forth behind their teams during drafts and strategic moments. But the impact that they have on a team’s performance can be immense. It’s no coincidence that T1 won Worlds in such epic fashion with Roach at the helm.

It’s a significant loss for the team and it’ll be interesting to see how they perform going into the new season.