Meet Coach Jeff, the man turning Nakuru kids into volleyball stars.
The Kenya Junior Volt Volleyball players training at Afraha Annex pitch on November 13, 2025.
In Nakuru's growing community sports scene, one man has been shaping young talent from the ground up — literally.
Geoffrey Esebwe, better known as Coach Jeff, founded the Kenya Junior Volt Volleyball Academy with a vision to nurture sports talent. Reflecting on the academy’s beginnings, Coach Jeff explains that he started coaching in 2024 while he was still in Shabab.
However, constant challenges and an overwhelming number of teams made consistent training difficult.
“When we came to Afraha Annex, this place was just a field,” he recalls. “So we cleared it and it became our first training ground.”
Geoffrey Esebwe founder of the Kenya Junior Volt Volleyball players training at Afraha Annex pitch on 13th November 2025.
What motivated him to focus on juniors was the realisation that only seniors had an active team at the time. The younger players often showed up with nowhere to train and nothing meaningful to do.
Today, his academy has grown remarkably and now boasts 46 young players, some of whom have secured scholarships at various schools.
Additionally, scouting activities continue to create more opportunities for the budding athletes. Looking back on his personal journey, Coach Jeff reveals that his introduction to volleyball was unexpected.
“When I was in NYS, I was a runner, but after a knee injury, I couldn’t run again,” he says.
He initially joined a football team, but after he left, the team fell apart. "That's when I decided to start a volleyball team," he says.
When he arrived in Nakuru in 2021, another coach encouraged him to pursue a professional volleyball career, which prompted him to attend school and earn coaching qualifications.
His vision for the next decade is to transform the volleyball system. He is concerned that teams often recruit players from other regions during local tournaments instead of giving local talent a chance.
“If I start training them at this young age, I believe that in a few years they will be the best team in Kenya,” he says confidently.
A torn net used by the Kenya Junior Volt Volleyball players training at Afraha Annex pitch on November 13, 2025.
However, despite impressive progress, the academy still faces significant challenges. Coach Esebwe highlighted the shortage of training equipment:
“We lack footballs; many of them are punctured and, since volleyballs are tubeless, they cannot be repaired. At the moment, we only have one ball and no sponsor,” he says.
In addition, the team lacks proper attire and other essential equipment, which makes training and competitions more difficult.
He urges the Department of Sports to provide more support for grassroots volleyball and to step up efforts to combat gambling, which he believes is one of the biggest threats facing young people today.