Marco Völler has had a new job for a few days. He's no longer on the parquet that still means the world to the 32-year-old professional basketball player. It is important for Völler that his desk is just next to it, a few meters away from the playing field in the training center of the Bundesliga basketball club Fraport Skyliners. “The paths are the shortest there,” he says. And through the large pane of glass, he can always see what's going on out there. The direct contact with the new head coach Diego Ocampo, who has his office right next door, the players and colleagues from the office in Basketball City Mainhattan plays an important role for the power forward.
Völler recently switched to the post of “Manager Sport” at the Skyliners. There, just like his father Rudi Völler did 25 years ago at the Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen, he is aiming for a career off the field. Marco Völler, who studied sports management, always exchanged ideas with his father about his career choice. “There are actually a lot of interfaces with my father,” says Völler. But there was one thing he had given him long before he moved to his desk: “Play while you can. This is the best time in life. "
This is certainly one of the reasons why Marco Völler is not saying goodbye to competitive sport for good. In the second Bundesliga ProB he will continue to hunt for points and scoops with the Skyliners juniors. The fact that he is now the senior in coach Miran Cumurija's young team will certainly be beneficial for his job as a sports manager. Because the care and development of young athletes has always been of great importance to the Skyliners. Head coach Ocampo is also known for having a knack for talent. Gunnar Wöbke, the managing director of the Skyliners, calls the 44-year-old Spaniard a “top expert for working with young players”. Völler knows the importance of talent management and sees himself as a link between the junior team, the head coach and the management.Although that will only be part of his large field of activity.
“We still have to see what Marco will do,” says Wöbke.
“Even as a player, he had the right attitude.
And since he was also the captain of the Skyliners, I had to deal with him regularly anyway and could see how he goes about things. "
Rush into the fray
Völler changes to his desk at a time when the job of a sports manager is in "crunchtime". "Now is the hot phase," says Völler, who is "fully involved" in the squad planning for the coming season of the Skyliners first division team. “If I had switched to the job sometime in winter, it would probably have been a little more relaxed,” he says. But that's exactly his thing: throwing himself into the fray, whirling around with a lot of energy as fighters appear. “I always had to do that on the basketball court because I was undersized compared to many other players. Now, as a junior functionary, I am also something like undersized compared to the experienced managers, ”explains Völler. "And I have to compensate for that with commitment."
The Power Forward was never a filigree technician under the basket. It had taken a long time for a coach to truly recognize the talents of the athletic fighter. Canadian Gordon Herbert quickly noticed after Völler's move from the Gießen 46ers to the Skyliners in 2017 that the newcomer was a man for the particularly intense moments on the field. The energy and the will to fight that emanated from Völler were considerable and extremely helpful when it came down to it. Völler had a difficult time after he was given a three-month doping ban in the 46ers in 2017. "I was lucky because that was a very mild punishment," says Völler, who probably consumed the prohibited substances with a dietary supplement. “You start to brood.With a ban of two years it would have been with the basketball. ”But as it was, there was still a good time for the Völler powerhouse.
One of his great advantages is that he has never been seriously injured in his career. “I'm still in top shape. But the thought that my basketball career couldn't last forever was already there, ”says Völler. But he is not a brooder who has racked his brains over his future for a long time. "And I wasn't one of those smart guys who already knew at 18 what they wanted to do later." But one thing was always clear to him: "That I will stay in the industry."