KBO League legend Kim Sung-han, former KIA Tigers coach, will lead the Gwangju Baseball Softball Association.

Former manager Kim Sung-han won 38 out of 62 valid votes in the 13th Gwangju Baseball Softball Association presidential election held on the 6th, beating Park Byung-seok, former executive director of the Gwangju Baseball Softball Association, who won 24 votes.안전놀이터

Former coach Kim Sung-han will start his four-year term as chairman of the Gwangju Baseball Softball Association from July 17 to 2029. He will work for the development of local baseball as an administrator.

Former coach Kim Sung-han, who was born in 1958, started his professional career as a founding member of the Haitai Tigers (currently Kia Tigers) in 1982, the first year of the KBO League. He recorded double-digit wins and home runs, which are impressive enough to date in the 1982 season. 

As Haitai had a thin base of players when the 1982 season was founded, former coach Kim Sung-han displayed his fighting spirit as both pitching and hitting. As a batter, he hit hard with a batting average of 0.305, 97 hits, 13 homers and 69 RBIs, and won the title of RBI king. As a pitcher, he played in 26 games, 106 ⅓ innings, 10 wins, 5 losses, 1 save, and an earned run average of 2.88.

Even considering that it was in the early days of the KBO League, both pitchers and batters showed monstrous performances showing off their top skills in the league. Fans as well as many baseball experts are confident that former coach Kim Sung-han will remain the only single-season double-digit home run-winning simultaneous achievement in Korean baseball history. 

Former coach Kim Sung-han led Haitai to its historic first Korean Series victory in 1983. He led the Tigers to 96 games, a batting average of 0.327, 111 hits, seven homers and 40 RBIs. He had the pleasure of becoming the first career home run king with 22 homers in 1985.

Kim Sung-han is also the first player in the KBO league to hit 30 home runs during a single season. In 1988, he topped the list with 30 home runs, 131 hits, 89 RBIs and slugging percentage, winning the title of four times in a row. He also topped the list with 26 home runs in 1989.

Kim Sung-han left behind a total of 1,338 games with a batting average of 0.286, 1,389 hits and 207 home runs in the KBO League. He acquired the Korean Series title ring seven times (1983, 1986-1989, 1991, 1993).

After retirement, he began his leadership career, took the helm of Haitai in 2001, and took the helm of his former team. After the club was acquired by Kia Motors, he continued to manage the team until the 2004 season. 

After resigning from the helm of Kia, he served as coach of its alma mater Gunsan Commercial High School, baseball commentator, KBO game management committee member, KBO technical committee member, and 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) head coach. He was the last head coach of Hanwha Eagles' first team from 2013 to 2014.