His own career has been cruelly cut short by injury but 22-year-old Edwin O'Dea has plenty of ideas on how best to bring the next generation of volleyballers to international prominence.
O'Dea, a beach volleyball international on the Asian circuit, has taken over as CoachForce volleyball's development manager for Bay of Plenty after a collapsed disc in his back curtailed a burgeoining career on the sand.
As his younger siblings Sam and Ben did battle in China last week at the Continental Cup Olympic qualification tournament, O'Dea had been pondering since late last year what to do when the CoachForce vacancy came up.
"The back had become too sore to keep playing and I was working part-time and thinking about maybe going back to polytech and doing more study.
"My expectations weren't overly high when I applied but one thing I had going for me was that I know everyone in volleyball in the region and generally get on well with people, although it's one thing to know how to play the game and another to be able to teach it to others."
O'Dea counts national men's beach high performance manager Mike Dudson, the region's original CoachForce development manager, as a mentor and hasn't been lacking offers of help and support from within the tight-knight volleyballing community in Bay of Plenty since his appointment was announced.
He replaced Tim Cleaver and is spending his first month meeting people and planning. His job is to get alongside coaches to ensure they are equipped and resourced sufficiently to coach well.
"The game's in a pretty healthy state but there's still a tonne to do. The big picture in terms of Volleyball Bay of Plenty's relationship with Volleyball New Zealand is to be the top region in the country in terms of what we provide for coaches and players.
"Kiwi Volley for the young ones has a good base, but are we getting enough coaching resources through to parents in charge of teams?
"It's not all about Tauranga either - we need to help develop volleyball across the other side of the bridge [Mt Maunganui], and Rotorua and the Eastern Bay have possibly felt the cold shoulder in the past."
O'Dea, who had indoor success with Otumoetai College, has been pondering what expertise he can offer the game's luminaries.
"People like Gads [Tony Gadsby], Stu [Henderson], Darrell Boyd and Mike [Akkerman] - with their knowledge of volleyball I'm not going to be able to offer anything to them personally they don't already know. But hopefully I can find and provide resources for them to develop their expertise."
Despite hobbling out of an Asian tour event in Thailand last April, O'Dea still turns out occasionally for the Tauranga men's indoor team - but pays for his toil afterwards. He'll continue with his rehab but he'll look to use his expertise off the court.