It’s 7am in Jersey, most of Bermuda is fast asleep and I sit looking out the double doors onto a serene morning landscape pondering the answer to a question that has long been haunting me; “Is the time you have given to coach really worth it all?”

I first started coaching volleyball about 25 years ago as a PE teacher at Mount Saint Agnes. Having loved the sport it was easy to coach and soon we became the “school to beat”.

In 2008 I was invited by Bill Bucci to co-coach a group of players at Warwick Academy.

As both our sons were a part of the team I eagerly accepted, and along with additional help from Andrew Soares we moulded a team that became a solid core group of dominant players. Not long after, the Bermuda Volleyball Association (BVA) decided to form a youth organisation called the BVAY in hopes to develop future national team players.

I took over the group as Bill was not able to and we trained hard for just over a year in preparation for our first competition — the East Caribbean Volleyball Association invitational.

During my first practice I held up a national team uniform from representing Bermuda at the Island Games in 2003. “One day, I told them all, you could wear a uniform similar to this and be proud to represent your country.”

Not expecting much in our first ever international event we were thrilled to walk away with the silver medal having almost beaten St Vincent in the finals.

I can say that I have spent hundreds of hours working with players to develop their skills. Being a coach means being a counsellor, a role model, a supervisor, a nurse, a motivator.

You spend time; creating training plans, running practices, e-mailing parents, assisting with fundraisers, travelling with teams, and normally you do it all for no compensation.

So, why give away precious time to that extent for free. Why would any coach do such a thing?

The answers vary. For myself, and for many others, it is because you have a child or children on the team, so it is good quality time to spend with them.

For some it is the passion for their sport, and the desire for others to experience that, for others it is just their nature to help out when called upon.

Whatever the reason the one thing we all share in common is the hope that your time is well spent and appreciated. Often it is, and occasionally it is not, or at least not always expressed.

For those of you reading this who have ever had a child coached by someone — paid or not — please be sure to express your thanks to that coach for what is often a thankless job.

I am one of the fortunate coaches as the dream for my players has reached its culmination.

Yesterday I stepped on the court with five other players in the first of our matches at the Island Games. All five of them being past players I had coached, three others on the bench, the same.

Watching your players grow to be national representatives of their country gives you a level of pride that cannot be expressed. Being able to play with them, unimaginable. We finished that game against Shetland winning in three straight matches.

Their future is promising. My goal fulfilled, but not finished.