100 Thieves announced that former VALORANT commentators Sean Gares and Daniel “ddk” Kapadia will serve as their VALORANT team’s head coach and general manager, respectively, while Michael “Mikes” Hockom will serve as assistant coach.
Both Gares and ddk announced last week that Riot Games did not hire them to work the first VALORANT Champions Tour LAN event, Stage 1 Masters. The pair used the incident to announce their retirement from casting in separate Twitter posts. While it was unclear what the duo planned to do next, it is now clear they will be helping a struggling 100 Thieves team find their feet this VCT season.
The next chapter of #100T VALORANT starts now.
Please welcome General Manager @ddkesports and Head Coach @seangares to 100 Thieves! pic.twitter.com/WG1aImwv4u
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) March 22, 2022
Sean Gares and ddk applying expertise in new way
As a former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player, Gares knows what it takes to play a similar game at a professional level. Since retiring in 2015, he was among the earliest wave of casters to work with Riot once VALORANT esports began in earnest. Mikes, his assistant coach, previously helped Team Envy finish third at the 2021 VCT North American Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs. Meanwhile, ddk is another long time caster with origins in the CS:GO community — though he has no previous managerial experience for a major team.
100 Thieves’ VALORANT roster has gone through tough times as of late. The team’s struggles began when they dropped Hunter “BabyJ” Schline and Adam “ec1s” Eccles only one month after they were first signed, in January. Sean “bang” Bezerra and Noah “jcStani” Smith joined on loan from other teams that did not qualify for VCT Challengers to fill out the 100 Thieves roster.
Still, while 100 Thieves were contenders to reach the VALORANT Champions Tour 2022: North America Challengers 1 playoffs, they bombed out of Group A with a 1-4 record and did not make it through the group stage. Gares and ddk will now be responsible for righting 100 Thieves roster before the next stage of VCT competition begins.
