New Arena: Korea’s Basketball Mecca?

With a 5,000 seat audience, NBA-level big screen, facilities such as a health club and cushioned flooring to prevent injury, this gym looks good enough to be used as a pro basketball stadium.

Park Han (60), the president of the Korean University Basketball Association, and Hyun Joo-yub (31), a star basketball player of LG Sakers, who have a teacher and pupil relationship from their days on the Korea University basketball team, met at Korea University’s Hwajeong gym, which will be opened on July 24. They had time to look around the gym and relive old memories.

Park and Hyun both had their day as stars of Korea University’s basketball team. Park, who entered in 1965, used his height (192cm) to play as a traditional center.

After retiring in 1975, he took the baton of the team, and until 2000, raised a great number of talented players. In 1996, he accomplished a total of 500 wins.

Hyun, one of Park’s favorite disciples, entered in 1994, and together with Jeon Hee-chul (SK), Kim Byung-chul (Orions), and Shin Ki-Seong (KTF), led the team to the top. Hyun, who is known for his love for the younger generation, has donated a passenger van and scholarship to the team.

Although they received the center spotlight on the court while they were still in the university team, they experienced joy and sorrow. While attending university, Park had to go to nearby high schools to train, because there was no appropriate gym. “I was always nervous because there was no gym.” Park says that in 1968, when he graduated, a gym was finally built.

Hyun says that having to train in a gym nearly 30 years old gave him trouble. “There were so many thorns on the floor of the gym that when I fell, I almost always got pricked. There was no heating of air conditioning, so I had to fight with the heat and the cold.”

Park recollected that at one time the inside of the gym was colder that outside, therefore called the freezer. That must be why they were so delighted at the opening of the Hwajeong gymnasium, which will become the rising new mecca of Korean basketball.

Home and Away matches needed to revitalize college basketball-

Park says, “To revitalize college basketball, Korea needs the home and away system America uses. Korea University will be at the forefront of the movement.”

To celebrate the opening of the gym, the highest authority high school basketball meet, the 42nd Ssangyong Pennant Basketball Tournament , will be held from the 16th of next month. Hyun says it could be the stage of dreams for Korea’s basketball star wannabes.

Park remarked to Hyun, “Don’t you want to become a leader someday in your own alma mater with such good facilities?”

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com