By Mark Weber of Vancouver Province Newspaper (posted with permission of Vancouver Province) Dr. Dave Perrin is a giant of a man, with a giant heart for animals and a passion for writing about them. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="330"] Gord Perrin with National Team (Volleyball Canada photo)[/caption] His son, Canadian volleyball player Gord Perrin, took the height and the passion and passed on the farm. “I got to escape to play volleyball instead of chasing cows,” said the younger Perrin. “I was never really into it.” Friday and Saturday at UBC’s Doug Mitchell Arena, Gord and his Canadian teammates host Belgium in a pair of crucial FIVB Volleyball World League matches. Dave, all 6-foot-11 of him, will make the trip in from Creston, the small mountain town in the Kootenays where Gord grew up and where Dave was a practising vet for almost 40 years until breaking his neck in a car accident in 2009. Returning from a book event for his best-selling Adventures of a Country Vet series — sample title and sage advice: Don’t Turn Your Back in the Barn — Dave went over a 600-foot embankment. At the bottom, he couldn’t feel his right arm and he knew he was finished as a vet. He knew long before that Gord would follow his own path, toward gymnasiums and away from pastures and “the most unusual herd you’d ever want to see,” as Dave cared for the clinic’s unwanted. The basketball hoop on the farm was always more interesting to Gord, who stands 6-foot-6 and is built like a tractor. “If you’d asked me at seven years old what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a veterinarian,” said Dave, who played volleyball for fun, made a decent blocker, but was always shanking it somewhere into the stands. “If you’d asked Gordy at seven years old, he wanted to be in the NBA.” But Gord had an excellent volleyball coach at Prince Charles Secondary in Mike Nelson, so that sport became his ticket to university and beyond. He was a first-team all-Canadian at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, joined the national team at 20, signed with Arkas Spor in Izmir, Turkey, and now he’s a starter for a Canadian squad that also includes stalwart Fred Winters of Victoria. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Perrin in action with Team Canada (Volleyball Canada photo)[/caption] On the international scene, it’s been a rapid rise for the 24-year-old Perrin. He excelled in World League play last year, when Canada beat second-ranked Russia and finished fifth. The 2016 Rio Olympics are on the horizon. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Perrin with the dig with Team Canada (Volleyball Canada Photo)[/caption] “I didn’t think it would take off this quick,” said Gord, whose sister, Alicia, plays volleyball for Trinity Western University and has represented Canada. “Just watching the level when you first join, it’s so much quicker, players are a lot stronger. It’s a big gap. The first two years I was just trying to catch up.” [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Perrin evaluating talent at 2012 Baden Cup in Kamloops[/caption] Time in Turkey has helped immensely. It was Canadian head coach Glen Hoag who took him there, at first to apprentice under the likes of Brazilian world champion João Bravo and U.S. Olympic champion Kevin Hansen. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Perrin (right) was the TRU 2009-10 Male Athlete of the Year[/caption] Hoag coaches Arkas, who won the Turkish league two seasons ago, were runners-up this past season, and recently finished fourth in the Champions League.