Volleyball SA is possibly the most sustainable and viable state association in the country. With a near virtual monopoly on indoor, beach, social, and representative volleyball, as well as the two profitable City Beach volleyball centres in recent years, VSA is in a good position to take the sport to its full potential in SA. With expanding business interests, the organization has grown dramatically in the last 5-6 years.
By now the whispers have reached everyone that last Thursday, Volleyball SA made its Business Development Manager and Second-in-charge, Trish Virag redundant. Up till then, Trish’s job involved managing VSA’s cash cows – the City Beach Volleyball centres in metropolitan Adelaide and at Mawson Lakes. If not being appointed to the General Manager’s position vacated by Paul Finn came as a surprise to some in the volleyball community, then Trish’s sudden redundancy could only be described as a shock.
Trish was president of Henley Hawks during the time I played there. I sat on the committee with Trish for a number of years, and co-coached the women’s reserves team with her one year. I came to respect her ability to get things done, her energy, and most importantly the noble nature of her intentions. She had a strong vision for our sport and community and gave selflessly to it.
Trish has worked at Volleyball SA for 15 years in various capacities. She has been involved in every aspect of the organization, at every level. As Junior Development Officer, she ran a State Juniors programme that experienced unprecedented and unrepeated success, and established several successful programmes for kids that remain to this day. As Business Development Executive, she launched Mini-Volleyball nationally as the Spike zone programme, and managed State League and Social Volleyball. Finally, as boss of the City Beach Centres, she project managed the construction of the Mawson Lakes centre and increased participation and profitability at the metropolitan centre.
In her time, VSA rapidly grew from a small organization of 3 or 4 people managing the interests of a small base of people in a boutique sport, to a multi-faceted organization of about 10 people serving the needs of the thousands of participants that our sport had grown to. As someone that knew every square inch of that organization and our sport in SA, she leaves behind a giant vacuum of experience and knowledge. The remaining staff who will absorb her responsibilities have been at VSA for a combined number years less than her.
Of course they’ll appoint someone with a lot of experience as general manager, but it will be a young group of people in their early 20s running the place, dominating the ideas and direction for our sport in SA. As someone who started running a business full-time straight out of uni at the age of 22 with 4 similarly aged and experienced friends, I can tell them from personal experience it will be interesting.
Working in a small organization, they will be exposed to opportunities and challenges that their peers working in larger organizations won’t get. They’ll get things right, and they’ll get things wrong. They’ll make decisions that will affect countless livelihoods and expectations of a whole gamut of stakeholders that are both unique and complex. They will cop the polarised opinion that their predecessors had, and people will talk about them with great affection or scathing, but never with any indifference. With the decisions they have to make, it’s impossible to make everyone happy. May we wish them the best and that they will do us all proud. They have big shoes to fill!
