The Big V championship winner will lead the Seahawks in 2018 after a four-year break.

President Jacob Sobey, who remains committed for a further 12 months, said Gainey was the ideal replacement for championship-winning mentor Matt Alexander.

Sobey said Gainey was “well connected and well respected within the league”, having played basketball in the statewide competition since arriving in Australia from America more than a decade ago.

“He is at the stage of his playing career where he’s not playing as significant a role as he used to and he was looking to still be involved in a leadership capacity which will be beneficial for us,” he said.

Experienced mentor Barry Brooks and on-court leader Alex Gynes will work alongside Gainey as assistant coaches.

Gainey said having Brooks on the bench would be beneficial with the veteran predicting he’ll lead a youth-laden roster.

“Every year the competition’s gotten better,” he said.

“My thing is I’ll see if these boys are up to it. I am still fit.

“But I want to see the young ones develop and get some experience.”

Louise Brown will lead Warrnambool Mermaids in their division one return.

The 2017 division two championship-winning coach said she was rapt to be reappointed after a success-filled debut season.

“I was pretty keen to have another go if the club wanted me,” she said.

“We are up in division one which is going to be much more challenging for the girls but it’s a challenge I think we are more than capable of attacking.”

Brown is confident the Mermaids will retain the bulk of their 2017 roster.