Ida Baker High School blinked, and lost. Baker’s loss is now Island Coast’s gain.

Greg Coleman became varsity boys’ basketball coach at Island Coast Wednesday, replacing Matt Booth who did not reapply for the position for the 2010-11 school year.

Island Coast athletic director Joe Bowen could not be reached for comment.

Back in May, Coleman was told that due to school district cutbacks, his history and social studies teaching position at Baker was being eliminated, but he could remain basketball coach. By accepting the job at Island Coast, Coleman returns to the same classroom position and will assist with the football team as he did at Baker.

“It is kind of odd because I was coaching the Baker boys in the summer high school program through this weekend,” said Coleman. “We played as a team in the Fort Myers Shootout and beat Fort Myers to win the shootout.”

Coleman assumed the Baker position from Scott Guttery, who built the varsity program from scratch for two years before moving over to Fort Myers. Coleman compiled a 47-36 record over his three seasons with the Bulldogs, including a school-best 18-11 with a regional playoff appearance in 2008-09. The Bulldogs were 15-14 this past season.

“I’m going to approach the job a bit differently at Island Coast,” said Coleman, “only because I am more experienced now. I was more of a JV coach when I took over Baker, but I think I did a good job building the Bulldogs into one of the area’s better programs.”

Coleman added he will evaluate the talent available at Island Coast and go from there. He will start by taking the Gators to a team camp at UCF in July.

Coleman’s “Summer Slam Basketball Camp” scheduled at Baker for July 19-22 follows him to Island Coast. The “Summer Slam” includes a varsity team camp July 15-18, involving a number of county high school teams, as well as a JV team camp that runs the same days as the July 19-22 youth camp for ages 9-14.