Friday�s Local Hero: Thorsten Leibenath is charged with cultivating basketball in this country in his role as coach of the Scottish Rocks. Enthusiastic, erudite and eager to develop his sport, his appetite for the challenge is remarkable.

It is perhaps no surprise that Thorsten Leibenath is able to amble unmolested around the Braehead Shopping Centre. Indeed, were he not an imposing figure in excess of six feet tall conversing in an impressively gravely voice, the German would be utterly inconspicuous to those carrier bag-laden consumers scurrying around the monolithic emporium on the outskirts of Glasgow. Yet therein lies the rub.

The 32-year-old is charged with cultivating basketball in this country in his role as coach of the Scottish Rocks. Enthusiastic, erudite and eager to develop his sport, his appetite for the challenge is remarkable considering the hoops he is required to jump through in order to spread the word.

Operating among discarded foam fingers in a claustrophobic office, jammed in a niche between the lifts and the multi-story car park adjacent to the shopping centre, is not something any coaching manual is likely to propose. Nor is the location of the arena where the team plays its British Basketball League matches - past the escalators, left through the food court and turn left again at the ice rink'.

In fact, save a solitary poster on the main doors to the centre, there is scant suggestion that any sport other than bargain hunting is held at Braehead. Not only are there no signposts but of the three sports shops in the vicinity, only one sells basketballs and even then an employee has to scour the storeroom to find them. Lob in the additional inconvenience of only being able to use the court on matchdays, as well as the dense Scottish sporting landscape, and Leibenath's vigour becomes bewildering.

"I knew it would be a challenge, and being based in a shopping mall is strange, but I think we can make use of the location," he insists. "First, we need to make it more obvious to people that there is professional sport played in the Braehead Arena as it's not very clear at the moment. But basketball is viewed in America as entertainment and that's what we want to do here, so having the arena among all the shops brings us to people."

A surprise appointment last summer, Leibenath and his resculpted side made a sluggish start to the season, much to the displeasure of those spoiled by the successful stewardship of Steve Swanson. However, a fourth-place finish in the regular season has earned them a home tie in the play-off quarter-finals against Plymouth Raiders on Sunday and fostered genuine belief that a crack at the final four showdown in Newcastle at the end of this month is a realistic accomplishment.

While the short-term goals are obvious enough, though, Leibenath is determined to use the sport as a force for good. The essential simplicity of basketball - get ball, throw through hoop - and the fast pace of the game make it attractive both to spectators and potential participants, but the German's agenda has its genesis in theories of imagined communities and social inclusion.

"Our young supporters today could be our players in five years' time so we try to get involved with them and get them playing the game," he says. "But more than that, we want to get them off the streets doing something productive and helping them make the right choices in life."

Initially, joining the Rocks was viewed as a stepping-stone to allow him to burnish the skills forged as an assistant coach in his homeland and in his national set-up, but now he envisages a future in which he could lead the side into continental combat.

First, he plans to help mould the club's infrastructure, establishing a platform for further development along with owner Ian Reid and Bruce Cook, the general manager, and trying to infuse some of his own philosophies into the foundations. "I would treat a five-year-old with the same respect as the prime minister.

I don't see why I shouldn't, reputation is overrated," Leibenath insists. "I tell my players that they shouldn't rest on what they've done but try to improve every week and I apply that to myself, too.

"You know, one of my dreams would be to participate in the Olympics. I would love to be involved in that in some shape or form, even as a waterboy. My brother experienced it by doing video scouting for the German handball federation so I got an idea of what it means to be one of those 20,000 people living in the Olympic village and I believe that is the clearest example of the soul of sport."

Not everyone might recognise it, but Leibenath sees a glimmer of that same soul in a Glasgow shopping centre.