For a guy who lived his whole life in Tucson, Ariz., new volleyball assistant coach Kasey Harwell is starting to fit in after a couple of weeks in Raleigh.

Sure, he’s still figuring out his new office and where to spend his free time, but he already loves sweet tea and is excited about being in the heart of ACC basketball country.

But he’s not here for the tea or the basketball – he’s here to help second-year coach Charita Stubbs’ team as it prepares for a new season. And with both being University of Arizona graduates, Harwell said it was natural for him to join Stubbs’ staff.

“I felt like I knew what I was getting into here, which is why I came,” Harwell said. “It’s a good deal for me.”

Stubbs also said their Wildcat connection was a plus.

“It helps me because I know we will be on the same page,” Stubbs said.

Harwell joins a program that was 2-29 last season and has one ACC win in the past five seasons. Even so, he said Stubbs sold him on the team’s potential to improve this season.

“We’re going to have a lot of success,” Harwell said. “Rita seemed to convince me of that.”

Since joining the program and working some camps, which were also attended by all 10 of the team’s incoming freshmen, he has had the chance to see how the team might get better. He said the freshmen have surprised him with how good they are.

Harwell said he thinks the team is ready to turn the corner and make marked improvement.

“You never can tell, but changing the attitude of just doing everything you can to win, that’s what Rita embodies. And from your second year on, second and third years are the years that the program really starts to change,” Harwell said.

“And so I feel like it’s going to come this year. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but looking at the personnel we have, the new people and the people that have been in the program, I think it’s going to be a lot different season than last season. That’s for sure.”

In his first season, one of his main focuses will be to instill good techniques in the players. While he’s still figuring out who he wants to be as a coach after five years of coaching, he said his style has been influenced the most by UA assistant coach Chris Gonzalez, whom he also knows from Arizona.

“His philosophy included an unbelievable amount of effort and an unbelievable amount of thought on how the game should be played,” Harwell said. “And that shaped me probably more than anything.”

Having graduated from college this year, Harwell said his youth can serve as both a help and a hindrance in his new job.

“It’s an advantage being young because I’m used to what they’re used to,” he said. “But it’s a disadvantage because I don’t have enough answers because I haven’t lived long enough.”

Recently, though, at one of the camps the team held, Harwell found himself talking to approximately 80 people about defense, something his new boss says he is “phenomenal” at coaching.

It was at that moment Harwell came to the realization he is exactly where he wants to be.

“I noticed myself talking to all these people,” he later said. “And it finally hit me that I was getting paid to do what I’m passionate about.”