Scottish Volleyball are delighted to announce the appointment of high-performance coach Felipe Humana-Paredes as High Performance Beach Coach and Programme Manager
Felipe joined the Scottish Volleyball team on 1st March on a remote basis whilst the relevant paperwork and visas were being secured with the UK Home Office. Since then, he has been in almost daily contact with his new colleagues building his knowledge of the landscape in Scotland and developing his plans for the sport. He has also been working closely with our performance athletes in supporting their training and planning. Felipe will be moving from Canada to Scotland to accept the full-time role next week and will perform a key part within the team as we look to take the sport to a new level in this country.
On top of coaching and supporting our beach performance programme, Felipe will have responsibility for all aspects of the beach game and has been tasked with introducing policy, procedures, and pathways to ensure growth from grass roots to performance. He has been working diligently to build relationships and knowledge of the sporting structures and key stakeholders in Scotland for some time now, and we are delighted with the early progress.
Felipe grew up soaked in high quality beach volleyball. His father, Hernan Humana, coached Canadians John Child and Mark Heese to bronze at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 – when beach volleyball made its Olympic debut – and coached the duo again in 2000 in Sydney, Australia. His sister, Melissa Humana-Paredes, is half of the Canadian duo that are the reigning beach volleyball World Champions (2019) and made her Olympic debut at the Tokyo Olympic Games, placing 5th overall.
Felipe was raised in Toronto and despite maintaining he was never pushed into the sport at 6’6’’ and with his exposure to the upper echelons of the game at an early age, it was no real surprise he found his own passion for the indoor and then the beach game.
After a successful collegiate career playing with York University in Toronto, he joined the Canadian team as a full-time athlete on their indoor programme. After an injury and missing out on a professional indoor volleyball contract, he made the decision to move into beach full time and played on the world tour for several years representing Canada.
Felipe’s most notable playing achievements include becoming the Canadian National Champion in 2015 and NORCECA Gold Medallist in 2016 (with beach partner Christian Redmann).
Throughout his playing career he was always actively involved in coaching, from club to varsity and everything in between. In 2021, Felipe was hired by Volleyball Canada as a Performance Analyst and Assistant Coach with the beach volleyball national team. When the opportunity here at Scottish Volleyball arose, he intuitively knew he was ready for the challenge.
The post has been supported by the FIVB empowerment fund and compliments the performance funding received for the beach programme from sportscotland.
If you are interested in getting involved in our Beach Performance Programme we are hosting a special information session with Felipe on Wednesday 27th April on Zoom, email perfomance@scottishvolleyball.org for the meeting link and invite.
