100 Thieves Promote Mikes To Valorant Head Coach Position

100 Thieves announced major changes to its Valorant division on Wednesday, October 19. As revealed by the North American esports organization, 100T Valorant roster will from now on be led by head coach Michael “Mikes” Hockom, who previously served as an assistant coach of the team.

As revealed by 100 Thieves’ general manager on Wednesday, the organization has decided to promote assistant Valorant coach Mikes to the position of head coach. The 23-year-old will take over from Sean “sgares” Gares, who stepped down from his role within the team and left the organization.

As revealed, sgares will no longer serve a role within the 100 Thieves Valorant division and will instead focus on content creation. Sgares, who is a former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive analyst and CS player, made his first appearance in the Valorant scene in February as a streamer for Gen.G Esports, before joining 100 Thieves as a head coach in March 2022.

At the time, he replaced Jovanni “Jovi” Vera, who had been with the organization since January 2022 but has failed to lead 100 Thieves to any notable results. Under Jovi, 100 Thieves placed runners-up at Knights Arena Monthly Gauntlet 2022: February, but then ninth-10th at VCT 2022: North America Stage 1 Challengers and fifth-eighth at Proving Grounds $20k – Spring 2022.

Things improved under sgares, but not by much. Since he took over 100 Thieves, the team failed to win a single tournament title. They placed fifth-eighth at Knights Gauntlet Circuit Monthly 2022: April and needed two open qualifiers to reach VCT 2022: North America Stage 2 Challengers.

In Stage 2 Challengers, 100 Thieves placed fifth-sixth but quickly bounced back with a successful run through VCT 2022: North America Last Chance Qualifier, reaching VALORANT Champions 2022. But despite qualifying for the season-culminating event, 100 Thieves failed to deliver.

The North American squad ended VALORANT Champions 2022 with an early group-stage exit, as they won just one of three games. As a result, 100T didn’t reach the playoffs and ended the year with a ninth-12th place finish.

In a bid to bounce back and start fresh, 100 Thieves decided to replace sgares with Mikes, who got promoted to the head coach position. Mikes had previously served as an assistant coach for sgares and has previous coaching experience.

The 23-year-old made his first appearance in the Valorant esports scene in October 2020, when he joined G2 Esports as a trial coach. Over the one month Mikes has spent with G2 Esports, he has won First Strike Europe: Qualifier A, First Strike Europe: Play-In #1, and First Strike Europe: Playoffs #1, but could only manage a top-four finish in the First Strike Europe.

After getting cut from G2 Esports, Mikes has spent the next seven months away from the scene, before returning in July 2021 to coach Envy. With his new team, Mikes qualified for VCT 2021: North America Stage 3 Challengers 1 and even reached the playoffs, where Envy placed third- behind 100 Thieves.

Despite his success, Mikes left Envy in October and again took a break from competitive Valorant, returning eight months later, in April 2022, when he got picked up by 100 Thieves as an assistant coach.

His stint as an assistant coach was a mixed bag of results; however, the organization seems to believe that Mikes is the right fit to lead the team rather than serving a more supportive role.

“Mikes was a key part in getting the team to Champions as well and is confident in the team’s ability to succeed in the Americas league this upcoming season,” said ddk.

Now, as the head coach, Mikes will be in charge of rebuilding the team ahead of the 2023 VCT season, which is set to start in February.