Seeking to give their team the best chance possible of performing well, Gravity brought in Nick "LastShadow" De Cesare as their coach before the 2015 Spring Split. While they found him to be quite helpful, he was unfortunately able to stay with the team for more than just that split. This is the team's official statement as to why De Cesare had to leave:

Hey guys,

People have been asking about why Cop was on stage for week 1. We want to communicate to everyone what's happening with our previous coach, LS. We recruited LS early in the Spring split, and he helped us improve our fundamentals of rotations and general macro play. He was an invaluable asset to why we went from a Challenger team to a playoff team. Moving forward towards the summer split, we brought Cop into a coaching position at his request to help give LS a hand teaching the players.

We would have liked to have LS continue improving our team moving forward to summer and future splits, but he had to allocate some of his time to real life problems that emerged. It's cruel for us to expect Nick to be working the long hours we need in an understaffed organization. In addition, other opportunities have come up that would better coincide with the out-of-game issues he's resolving.

Gravity management and players all hope Nick overcomes his real-life hurdles, and we certainly hope he keeps pursuing his career in League of Legends. Thanks for everything!

The organization certainly would have liked to have been able to keep LastShadow around, but life has a habit of getting in the way of the best laid plans. For now, they're going to entrust the coaching responsibilities to David "Cop" Roberson, relying on his game knowledge to help the team keep moving forward.

Image credit: lolesports.com