Brian Merkel is back pacing the hardwood at Starkville Academy, the school announced on Thursday.

The former boys basketball coach – who spent the last year as the Volunteers’ athletic director – added his former role to his current one last week, taking over for former basketball coach Mark Alexander. Alexander, who coached both girls and boys basketball last season at SA, departed the program for a coaching opportunity at Jackson Prep. The Vols are coming off a MAIS Division III 4A state championship appearance last season – a 61-50 loss to rival Heritage Academy – with a 13-12 overall record.

“When Coach Alexander left it was late in the year, so our new head of school (Rob Shillito) asked me if I would be interested in doing it and to (make) a long story short here we are,” Merkel told The Dispatch.

Even though there is more on his plate now, Merkel said it’s great to be back teaching and coaching basketball.

“I missed it,” he added. “I always enjoyed, especially as the (athletic director), getting to watch a lot of different sports. When you are the coach of a different sport it is a little bit difficult to get out and watch different sports. I enjoyed that and really I learned a lot from all our coaches, just different styles and how they run their program and so it was always like, ‘Man if I get back into coaching you know I’m going to do this or that,’ just learning from the great coaches we have. That it is always there, so when the opportunity presented itself, it was exciting. I’m ready to go and excited to be back on the bench.”

It’s a role that Merkel said he can step into with a lot of familiarity since he’s not long removed from coaching some of the team’s players when he had the role just a few years ago. This summer has all been about getting the team out on the court just playing and competing so Merkel can learn and build upon the squad’s strengths and weaknesses.

“We’ll always place a great emphasis on defending and rebounding, those are non-negotiables for me,” Merkel said. “We’ll mix in some different zone stuff defensively, just kind of what we think is best for our offensive personnel is what we’ll run.”

This week the Vols are participating in a basketball camp in Philadelphia at Neshoba Central where they are playing games and getting in a bunch of work ahead of the season.

“We’ll play games (early this week) and maybe play a few other games this summer and get on the floor and see what we’ve got,” he said.

As for after the season, Merkel added that he is currently unsure if the school will look for someone else to take command of the boys basketball team or leave him in charge. That’s something that will have to be hammered out later, as the Vols have a lot of work to do before tip off this year.

“We’ll see,” he said. “We’re kind of playing it day-by-day. We’re going to coach these guys up and have a great year and just take it day-by-day.”