Joseph Jihoon Pak was born on 27th August 1990 in Richland, Washington to parents Paul and Hannah Pak. He grew up in a soccer-loving family with a younger brother, Daniel. From as young as three years old, Pak played with his father who also acted as his coach for many years in his youth. Pak’s dad was so invested in his son’s career that he drove “seven to eight hours round trip up to twice a week” so Pak could play for better teams.
Pak’s hard work most certainly paid off. While at Richland High School, he was an all-state and all-conference player for three years and was also a member of the National Merit Committee. Pak cited Cristiano Ronaldo as his childhood idol and role model, particularly because of CR7’s “work ethic and his devotion to soccer”. Pak would always wear Ronaldo’s trademark Vapors cleats while trying to emulate his hero’s footskills.
As a reward for his achievements at high school, Pak was recruited by John Kerr who was then the head coach of the Harvard Crimsons soccer team. However, in a strange turn of events in 2008, Coach Kerr decided to return to his alma mater of Duke University to coach the Blue Devils. This saw Pak switch his allegiance from Havard to Duke, though it was a decision he never regretted. Although Pak only heard about Duke because of its renowned basketball team beforehand, he found it to be an institution of both academic and athletic excellence. He said in 2023, “I'm very glad with what happened and there were the friends that I made within the soccer team who I'm still friends with today.”
During his first year with the Duke Men’s Soccer, Pak mainly played as an attacking, outside midfielder. He ranked second among all rookies in minutes played, starting 13 of the 19 games he played in. Unfortunately, he suffered from a prolapsed disc in his spine which ruled him out of the 2009 and most of the 2010 season. Nevertheless, Pak still registered minutes in his junior year, and even played some in the NCAA tournament. He was also selected for the ACC Honour Roll that year.
Pak’s senior year would be his best in terms of individual performance. He moved to playing a more defensive midfield position, and even played as a fullback at times. Pak claimed that this change happened because he felt that he did have enough stamina to play a full game at the demanding winger / outside minefield positions. In the 2011 season he scored one goal and provided four assists, which placed him tied fourth on the team for goal contributions. Pak still vividly remembers his first career goal for Duke, which came against Wake Forest that year. “It was not only exciting,” he said, “but a bit of a relief!” Although Pak saw himself as more of a play maker than a target man, he was glad that he had finally scored.
Overall, Pak had a great experience at Duke Soccer. He said the program was very intense, with four hours of training each day and traveling on the weekends. It did not help that he had to balance soccer with work from class. But he loved it, and gave full credit to Duke’s amazing facilities, especially the medical department which helped him rehabilitate after his injury. Pak was also proud to play in games that were featured on ESPN.
Outside of being a Division One athlete, Pak pursued a rigorous double major in economics and sociology. It was quite difficult, but the Duke Athletics Program provided free tutors for him which helped him lessen the load a bit. Pak also worked in the Athletics Office as an admin assistant. He most certainly had his hands full, but he did join a fraternity (Delta Sigma Phi) to balance the social side of things. Although he only attended one basketball game in Cameron due to the soccer schedule, Pak appreciated Duke’s basketball culture and was glad that he witnessed the Blue Devils win the national championship in 2010.
Pak started trading around the time he got into college, so majoring in economics was an obvious choice. He would wake up as early as 3am to trade on at the London and Asian open hours simply because he loved doing it for fun. What really got Pak into finance was the influence of Professor Emma Rasiel, who still teaches courses at Duke. He claimed that she was the one who helped Pak get his first job at RBS, and also advised him against pursuing professional soccer. In particular, her argument that the banking positions were becoming increasingly hard to get into (and that career longevity of players is very uncertain) really helped him make this extremely tough decision.
After Duke, Pak worked in trading at RBS for four years, then moved to London for a company called Rothesay. He founded a low-alcohol beer company in 2017 called Wilby, which specializes in producing 2% ABV beverages (about half the amount of alcohol in a normal beer). This venture came about when Pak saw that there was a surge in the market for non-alcoholic beer post pandemic, but there was not anyone making anything in between. He said it was not easy to sell people something new, but it was definitely an interesting learning experience for him. Pak also serves as a trustee on the board for St Luke’s Community Center since 2022, and he was glad that he could finally do some community service after almost ten years of inaction.
Outside of work, Pak still enjoys soccer in his spare time. He is actually playing for a small London team in the 11th or 12th Division of the English football pyramid. Pak also watches the big games whenever they are on television, and followed the 2022 FIFA World Cup in a “religious” manner. His favorite player currently is Son Heung-Min, who stars for Tottenham Hotspurs. Having grown up watching Manchester United’s Park Ji-Sung, Pak believes in supporting whoever the best Korean player in the Premier League was at the time (since himself identifies as Korean-American). It is clear that this sport will always be an integral part of Pak’s life, and in his own words: “it definitely formulated who I am today.”
Bibliography
Duke University. “Joe Pak - 2011 - Men’s Soccer.” Accessed February 23, 2023.
https://goduke.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/joe-pak/1096.
Pak, Joseph. Interview by Jun Tan. February 21, 2023.
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