Advertisement

sportsDallas Fuel

The Dallas Fuel dropped Rascal in 2018. Now the 2-time OWL champ is ready for redemption

“Rascal” joining the Dallas Fuel as an assistant coach is a sign of growth from both parties.

The Dallas Fuel and Kim “Rascal” Dong-Jun learned a lot from each other, it just didn’t take as long for Kim to capitalize on it.

Kim, who signed on as an assistant coach with the Dallas Fuel last week, made a much unexpected return to Dallas. He was with the Fuel for two months in early 2018, but that ended up a failed attempt for the Fuel to groom a DPS superstar.

Both the Fuel and Kim learned from their original separation, but it’s important to know what happened. That’s the only way to understand why it may have needed to happen, because now the Fuel have a young, loaded DPS roster heading into Overwatch 2. Kim has the OWL championship experience.

Advertisement

He may have never won two rings with the San Francisco Shock without being dropped by the Fuel.

Sports Roundup

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis, scores and more.

Or with:

“When it comes to trying to resolve an issue or my attitude towards people and the things I have to take care of has changed,” Kim told The Dallas Morning News via interpreter. “When I think back, my passion has kind of overpowered everything else where it might have been overwhelming for others to deal with.”

Advertisement

Envy Gaming founder Mike Rufail has dealt with several Fuel players in the past because they weren’t synergizing with the team. Kim was the first.

The most notable may have been Jang “Decay” Gui-un in 2020. Jang and the Fuel parted ways the same day Dallas also moved on from two coaches, and the same week another player was dropped for misogynistic comments.

The Fuel needed a culture reset. Looking back, Rufail saw Kim was tried to get that across.

Advertisement

“When we released Rascal, I realized that both sides were right. He definitely was disruptive because he was so passionate about our team winning the title in the Overwatch League,” Rufail said. “He just refused to play with the coaches and players we had at the time. I think you should never do that, and it was the first time I heard about him being disruptive.”

Rufail said he’d stand by that any player, no matter the talent, shouldn’t refuse to work with others. Kim felt his passion got the best of him, but that he learned to harness it.

Time, reflection and a championship-contending 2021 team proved the Kim may have not been too far off. Rufail saw passion as a necessity.

“As I’ve learned more, and we built more on the Fuel, I came to learn that he’s the kind of player you want. Somebody who cares so much that they want an environment where other people care just as much as they do,” Rufail said. “Rascal was so young and I honestly am sorry in some ways that I didn’t listen to him more back then.”

Kim, 23, isn’t a kid anymore. And he has played with and against the best DPS players in the world. He considers Dallas Fuel stars Kim “SP9RK1E” Yeong-han and Kim “Doha” Dongha to be some of the most mechanically gifted players around.

He watched them for a while, even though Rascal and the Philadelphia Fusion never played the Fuel this past season. There was an opportunity with those two.

The season ended. Dallas needed a coach and Dong-Jun wanted to make that leap, and already had a track record of working with Fuel general manager Mat “TazMo” Taylor from his previous stint.

“Whenever I did look at Sp9rk1e and Doha when I was still a player, I felt like I had a pretty similar playstyle,” Dong-Jun said. “But I also thought that if I were as mechanically skilled as them, maybe I could have done a little bit better. So that in turn made me think that if I could coach them, maybe we could create good synergy.”

Advertisement

Dallas head coach Yun “RUSH” Hee-won put stock into former players turned coaches, Taylor said. That’s what made Fuel assistant coach Go “Aid” Jaeyoon an attractive pickup. Even ex-Dallas assistant coach Kim “Yong” Yongjin used to play.

Rascal was obviously a former player, but a cut above the rest as a previous star.

“Rascal has a huge pedigree in that regard having been on a bunch of teams and having two world championships,” Taylor said. “Since he is a DPS, he could definitely help our DPS line.”

While the Fuel may have erased a complicated history with a franchise-best season recently, that didn’t eliminate more comeback stories. Rascal just began his Dallas Fuel redemption arc.

Advertisement