DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It was the final few moments before the start of the Atlantic-Seabreeze quarterfinal of the B-CU Weekend Shootout, and former Wildcat and new Atlantic High School Varsity Boys' Basketball head coach David Howard was on the bench strategizing with his fellow coaches.

Thing was, Howard was on the Seabreeze bench, and his Atlantic players were giving him the “Any Minute Now Coach” look as if this were Erik Spoelstra and Greg Popovich comparing notes on the triangle offense one minute before a tipoff.

That's summer league, and that's also Howard enjoying his return to the high school coaching ranks.

This weekend's 13-team tournament at historic Moore Gymnasium and the South Ormond Beach Rec Center -- featuring state powers Jacksonville Ribault and St. Petersburg Gibbs --a along with local favorites including Mainland and Seabreeze -- was Howard's first high school coaching foray since leaving Spruce Creek HS (Port Orange, Fla.) in 2008, and he appreciated that it happened on the Bethune-Cookman campus where he was a basketball standout in the 1980s.

“Kind of ironic, isn't it,” Howard said. “I love Bethune-Cookman with all my heart, and when I saw the opportunity of a team camp here, I jumped at it. This place is special.”

Here is where the formative stages of Howard's coaching career started under the legendary Jack “Cy” McClairen.

“I had great coaching here. Cy was and is an inspiration and a mentor,” Howard said. “When you're blessed with great coaching, you want to emulate that. I was taught integrity and how to be a man, and I want to give back. Coaches are role models, parents and more.”

Howard's Atlantic HS team went undefeated in pool play to earn a number one seed for Sunday's bracket, but fell one point shy of erasing a ten-point deficit to eighth-seeded Seabreeze in a game that felt more like a late-January district contest, rather than a summer league affair during the final five minutes.

“The competition here has been great and the weekend is going to help us get ready for the upcoming year,” Howard stated. “I learned today that these guys don't like to lose, and I like that. The players are still learning me, and I'm still learning them. You're always learning.”