{"id":133202,"date":"2025-09-10T16:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/133202\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T16:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:39:10","slug":"how-a-young-korean-student-found-family-with-the-illawarra-hawks-and-discovered-dreams-do-come-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/133202\/","title":{"rendered":"How a young Korean student found family with the Illawarra Hawks and discovered dreams do come true"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kyu<\/p>\n

Kyu Hyun Shim with Hawks players Kobie McDowell-White and Will \u201cDavo\u201d Hickey. Photo Joel Armstrong\/Illawarra Hawks.<\/p>\n

Kyu Hyun Shim didn\u2019t come to Wollongong to change his life. He came to see a friend.<\/p>\n

Last January, the 25-year-old from Seoul flew to Australia to visit his high school teammate and best mate Lee Hyun-jung or \u201cH J Lee\u201d as we know him, a Korean national basketballer who would soon become a beloved championship player for the Illawarra Hawks.<\/p>\n

Kyu (\u201cQ\u201d to the boys now) was supposed to continue on to Canada to study international relations.<\/p>\n

Instead, something about the place \u2014 and the people \u2014 got under his skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Australia so much,\u201d he says simply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here just to visit Lee, because he\u2019s my best friend. We are like family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved being here. I changed my plan, applied to UOW and I got accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

A scholarship sealed it with his mum back home.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t like it at first,\u201d he laughs, \u201cbut when I said I got a scholarship, she said, \u2018OK, you can go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyu enrolled in international relations at the University of Wollongong and quietly found his way to the Hawks\u2019 training floor.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d always dreamed of coaching. Lee told him there was an opening to be an intern coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my dream job,\u201d Kyu says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI applied and I got it. I love being around my guys, spending time with the boys, learning from the coaches. Coaching players is totally different in Korea. I\u2019m learning a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The learning wasn\u2019t only on the whiteboard. It was in the way a professional team in a coastal city took in a stranger and made him family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started hanging around with Lee and the players, they asked me thousands of questions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted to know about me. They were very curious. They all welcomed me, said hi first, and shook my hand. I felt \u2026 adopted into this group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask around the Hawks and you\u2019ll hear the same thing from the other side of the embrace.<\/p>\n

Star big man Sam Froling \u2014 one of the club\u2019s leaders \u2014 says the room changes when Kyu walks in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever Q walks into the gym, everyone\u2019s face lights up,\u201d Sam says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just got that energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That lightness isn\u2019t an act. Kyu carries gratitude like a passport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis life was my dream \u2014 studying overseas and working in a basketball team,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel grateful every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gratitude turned into friendship and friendship became family.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kyu (5) and Lee (35) as teenagers in Korea. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kyu (3), wearing his trademark smile, in the middle of the font row with Lee (back row, third from left, wearing 35) in the Samil High School team. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kyu during a pre-game shootaround for the Hawks. Photo: Joel Armstrong\/Illawarra Hawks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kyu signing autographs during the Hawks\u2019 street parade championship celebrations. Photo: Joel Armstrong\/Illawarra Hawks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kyu (far right) with his best mate HJ Lee celebrating the Hawks\u2019 championship victory. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Living in Australia and coaching basketball is Kyu’s dream. Photo: Joel Armstrong\/Illawarra Hawks.<\/p>\n

When Froling suffered his injury and couldn\u2019t drive, Kyu moved in to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needed someone to take him to appointments,\u201d Kyu says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love driving. We became really good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s now living with Sam in his new place \u2014 a practical arrangement that\u2019s grown into something deeper.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam joked I\u2019m \u2018part of the furniture,\u2019\u201d Kyu grins. \u201cI feel like home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralians are more like a family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very close. They hang out off the court. I think they are more like a family than Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, there were cultural adjustments. He notes a certain four-letter word gets used differently here.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, they use that word for close friends. Kind of culture shock,\u201d he laughs, shaking his head.<\/p>\n

The bigger adjustment was how quickly Wollongong felt like his place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people are so gentle and respectful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love nature \u2014 beaches and mountains. Except missing my family and our dog, this is my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyu\u2019s journey has tracked alongside a club that rediscovered its best self.<\/p>\n

He arrived and in his first season around the team, the Hawks lifted a championship \u2014 a moment he describes as \u201cvery unique and special\u201d.<\/p>\n

He played as a guard in high school \u2014 \u201cI passed a lot to Lee,\u201d he jokes \u2014 but his gaze now is on the craft of coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my dreams is being a basketball coach in Korea,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to stay here as long as possible, learn from advanced basketball and take it back to help improve Korean basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

That dream sits alongside the everyday. He studies. He helps. He smiles. He swims at the beach and is teaching himself to bodysurf (\u201cNot perfect yet\u201d, he admits).<\/p>\n

He\u2019s developed a taste for Aussie coffee and he\u2019s working on his Aussie vocabulary, colourful bits and all.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a line he returns to that feels like the heart of this story, and of this club: \u201cDream big\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was nothing, but I\u2019m working at the best basketball team in Australia,\u201d Kyu says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t speak English at all. Now I can speak a little. If you dream big, you can do whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a line Froling offers that feels like the other half \u2026 \u201cQ makes the place better,\u201d Sam says.<\/p>\n

In the end, that\u2019s the Illawarra thing. A team that wins on the floor because it knows how to be good to each other off it.<\/p>\n

A city that notices people, opens doors, and turns strangers into locals. A young man who came to visit a mate and found a home \u2014 and, in the process, held up a mirror to the Hawks\u2019 culture and the community that sustains it.<\/p>\n

Kyu\u2019s story isn\u2019t a headline grabber. It\u2019s something gentler and truer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the quiet proof that what the Illawarra Hawks are building is bigger than a season. It\u2019s a way of belonging \u2014 one handshake, one car ride, one smile at a time.<\/p>\n

The Illawarra Hawks start #NBL26 as the defending champions and open the season with a home game against the Tasmanian JackJumpers on 27 September at the WIN Entertainment Centre, a game which will feature the Championship Banner Ceremony. Click here<\/a> to get tickets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyu Hyun Shim with Hawks players Kobie McDowell-White and Will \u201cDavo\u201d Hickey. Photo Joel Armstrong\/Illawarra Hawks. Kyu Hyun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-133202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}