Karl DeMasi is ready to get back into the swing of varsity basketball coaching.

The veteran coach was named the next Effingham County High School girls basketball coach last Wednesday, and coaching basketball is still his first love.

“I never gave up on coaching basketball,” he said. “That’s why I moved down here, to coach basketball. I still want to coach.”

DeMasi has been coaching junior varsity and eighth grade basketball at St. Andrew’s School on the Marsh. He spent five years as head football coach at Groves, where he was also the girls basketball coach for a season, and he was head girls hoops coach at Johnson and Jenkins in Savannah.

“It was tough being the head basketball coach and the head football coach,” he said.

He also wanted to spend more time watching his youngest son Dominic play, but he was unable to get his schedule to work at Groves.

“I never really wanted to leave,” DeMasi said.

He was also the athletic director at Savannah Arts Academy and hoped that the school would start a basketball team to go along with its other sports programs. But it decided not to, DeMasi said, and he opted to leave.

His eldest son Russell quarterbacked Savannah Christian to a 10-2 finish last year and will be a preferred walk-on at Georgia Southern.

DeMasi is planning on meeting the returning Lady Rebels and the rising middle schoolers interested in playing either Wednesday or Thursday. His offensive philosophy will be based on the abilities of the players he has, but DeMasi said he likes changing his defenses.

“I take a lot of pride on defense,” he said. “ Offense wins games and defense wins championships. We’ll play multiple defenses. We’ll switch it up so a defense has to be ready for everything.”