Swapping a squash racquet and a potential international career, for a seat in a surf boat and patrolling Omanu Beach, is one of the more unusual changes for a young sportsman to make.
But that is what James Cooper has done and the 18-year-old has no regrets as he starts another voluntary shift ensuring the hundreds of nippers learning to swim are safe on a typically hot summer's morning at Omanu Beach.
Cooper has enjoyed plenty of success as a squash player, and last year he went to the World Squash Championships in Qatar as part of the Under-19 New Zealand team.
Before that he was preparing in Malaysia during the school holidays in his final year at Aquinas College, where he recorded a rare yoyo fitness test score of 22.7 - as close as you will get to completing the daunting shuttle runs that all athletes dread.
But a few months later he is patrolling the beach and part of the Omanu Under-19 surf boat crew with Fraser Kirk, James Martin and George Cortesi that won the second round of the national surf boat series in Whangamata last week.