Warrnambool's Sam Brooks is enjoying life as a football coach a decade after a quad bike accident

Brooks is enjoying his first year as coach of Caramut Swans in the Mininera and District Football League after eight seasons coaching various Old Collegians' junior sides.

The 26-year-old is forging a promising managerial path, a decade after a quad bike accident left him with serious head injuries and put him in an induced coma for three days.

Brooks, a talented junior basketballer, suffered a fractured skull, bruising and bleeding on the brain, a broken nose, a broken bone in his back and bruised lungs.

Ten years later he is mostly recovered from the accident - aside from hearing complications in his right ear - and is relishing his role at the Swans.

"It's been a bit of a struggle for wins and losses but it's been really good fun out there otherwise," Brooks told The Standard.

"There's been lots of challenges and what not this year.

"I've certainly learnt a lot that's for sure."

Brooks understandably struggled following the accident but said one positive was it led to him coaching basketball and football.

"It gave me another string and another thing to go after rather than just the playing side of things," he said.

"Which I can't do as well as I used to before that."

He returned to the basketball court for the Seahawks in 2013 but these days is just involved in football.

"It's a bit hard to do both, the seasons run at the same time," Brooks said.

"Most of my main friendship groups from school were all through footy so it was easy to fall into that."

He has even taken the field and "pinched-hit" for several games with an undermanned Caramut reserves side.

Outside of his coaching duties, Brooks runs his own window cleaning business where he is free to work at his own pace.

His Swans face a mammoth test on Saturday when travel to play second-placed Tatyoon Hawks.

The Hawks have lost one game for the season while the Swans have just one win - a round six triumph over Moyston-Willaura.

The Swans forfeited their last match due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

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