During the hottest era of Starcraft pro league, where male-only league was the only dominating tournament you might think, there was a female-only pro league as well at the time. Truth to be told, it wasn’t as hot as the other male-only tournaments but there were solid number of people following the league. Just like there were the star players in the male-only league, there were star players in the female-only league. I still remember two notable players that had relatively longer career than the other players back then.
Seo Ji-Soo, aka ToSsGirL, is a Terran user (a rare Terran user, for christ’s sake!) who was particularly attracting much attention in the scene. She was good. I mean, really good. In my memory, she was always winning the championship title if not 2nd place.
Recently I’ve met a Korean esports coach at a professional team in Japan whom used to play matches with Tossgirl, and his awe towards her was mesmerizing. She’s the only female player that could equally play against a male professional, he said. I hope it doesn’t sound discriminating, but male vs. female Starcraft matches were more or less like male vs. female soccer or basketball matches for some reason.
Now it wasn’t only about her performance. She was pretty. Very. She had the look closer to a TV celebrity rather than just a professional game athlete. If you were an avid male gamer, it was hard to resist NOT to become her fanboy just by watching her game play; but even if you weren’t a gamer, it was difficult to resist not to be attracted by her look. It’s extremely extremely hard to earn both, and she made the difference in the female-only league.
I remember there was another player called Kim Ka Eul, who was very good as well. She had an engineer background, which was pretty rare I would say back then in Korea, and her play was smart. I think her career as a professional athlete was pretty successful, yet her real success came after her athlete career, which I will get to it later. Tossgirl had a different path, creating her own success as well. I will get to it.
Just eSports 