New UTEP volleyball coach Ben Wallis talks about how he developed as a coach and what he wants for the program. Bret Bloomquist/El Paso Times
As a general rule, for every coach who heads an NCAA Division I program, there are 100 different paths that could have led them 100 different places.
They are living proof of the butterfly effect, that so many variables created the present moment.
To some extent, UTEP's new volleyball coach, Ben Wallis, defies all that.
There was one huge what-if: What if his globe-trotting Air Force parents, Bill and Kathy, hadn't ended up at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque in 1993, just as Ben was starting high school, and hadn't decided to retire there?