Scott Holmes has been nominated for Sports Volunteer of the Year award

He moved to the town in 2006 and since then, has endlessly sacrificed his own time to help out across coaching, refereeing and committee roles with Orange District Basketball Association and on Tuesday, was nominated for the Sports Volunteer of the Year award.

"It's very humbling," Holmes said.

"Obviously you do it because you enjoy the sport and like seeing the kids grow.

"It's good to see a lot of people get recognised for the time and effort they put in."

Holmes has spent most of his mentoring career overseeing the under 12s, 14s and 16s and says there's nothing quite like coaching youngsters.

"It's very rewarding... I love seeing the kids' development," he said.

Holmes hails from Mareeba in far North Queensland and first picked up a basketball when he was seven and always approached the sport with a defence-first mentality.

And while modern-day basketball at the higher levels is largely driven by analytics, Holmes prefers to keep it simple for juniors and makes sure he doesn't overload the developing players with too much information. "I'm more of a hands on coach. I'm not really into the whiteboard side of things.

"You haven't got a great deal of time at a timeout and the kids can get a bit lost so you've got to keep it simple. "You try to coach on the run and give them one or two things to focus on."

While there are always times in a game where you need your best five on the floor, Holmes is mindful of giving all his players a fair go. "I try to always give them fair game time but sometimes you do need to push for the win," he said.

Holmes is joined by a raft of volunteers who give up their time on the nominations list.

Also in the running for Sports Volunteer of the Year awards is: Joel Begnell (touch football), Leo Presslaber (mountain biking), Kristy Parish (basketball) and Dean Brus (shooting).