Kwon Soon-chan to coach Heungguk Life Insurance pro volleyball team

A reshuffle has started among teams in the women’s professional volleyball league, which closed the last season prematurely due to the Covid-19 crisis. Teams have started replacing their coaches, with Heungguk Life Insurance becoming the first to do so. The team said Friday it has appointed Kwon Soon-chan, former coach for men’s team of KB Car Insurance, as its new coach. Terms of his contract is unknown.

Kwon, a graduate of SungKyunKwan University, played for Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, and served as coach for Woori Capital and Korean Air, before coaching KB Car Insurance for three years from 2017.

Heungguk terminated its eight-year partnership with coach Park Mi-hee with the expiry of her contract. “We have judged that Coach Kwon, soft but charismatic and role model-style leader, would be the best choice who will boost our team’s fame,” the team announced. “I will continue the honorable tradition of winning the combined championships as many as four times,” Kwon said. “I will take the lead myself to ensure that both players and the coaching staff form strong unity.” The team also decided on the day to keep setter Kim Da-sol (25) who has become a free agent. She signed a three-year contract with Heungguk, which will pay her 110 million won (about 90,300 U.S. dollars) in annual salary, plus 10 million won (8,200 dollars) in option.

As Kwon has joined a new team, after Korea Expressway Corp. coach Kim Jong Min (48), Hyundai Engineering & Construction coach Kang Seong-hyeong, and Industrial Bank of Korea coach Kim Ho-cheol (67) have moved to the women’s league from the men’s, more than half of the seven teams in the women’s league have been filled with coaches from men’s teams.


Hong-Gu Kang windup@donga.com