FOURTH IN A SERIES

Finding Demo is easy.

The Hawaii football team’s new special teams coordinator — Chris "Demo" Demarest — is somewhere on the Manoa campus overseeing the offseason conditioning program, monitoring the players’ academics, watching videos, making recruiting contacts or preparing for next week’s start of spring training.

"I’ve got all of these texts from people saying, ‘Oh, you’re in paradise,’ " said Demarest, a New Jersey native who was hired in January. "I haven’t seen paradise yet. I’m in the office every day. I think I’ve seen the beach one time. My paradise will come when we win football games."

In his youth, it was easy to find Demarest on Sundays. His father, Jay Demarest, was a high school football coach and athletic director. On Sunday, Demarest would accompany his father to the police station, where films of Friday night’s game were developed.

They would pick up the cartridges of 16mm film, then head to the weekly gathering of coaches in the family basement.

"My mother would have food for them," Demarest recalled. "I remember going down there. My father had the old projector, with the fast-forward and rewind (buttons) on the clicker. My father had a sheet in the basement. They projected it onto the sheet. They would watch film and break down film."

From when he was hip-pad high, Demarest would watch his father coach from the sidelines and in the locker room.

"I heard my father’s speeches," Demarest said. "He didn’t have the best players, but he had the best team. He always talked about playing as a team, playing together, getting it done one way. As a kid, I remembered all of that."

After a career at Northeastern and a brief stay with the Washington Redskins, Demarest sought to follow in his father’s steps and coach at the high school level. Jay Demarest felt otherwise, encouraging his son to pursue coaching jobs at the college level.

Demarest began as a graduate assistant at Rutgers and then a volunteer assistant at East Carolina.

"As you go from place to place, a group of guys go here, a group of guys go there," Demarest said. "They remember you. They up your network."

Along the way, Demarest coached the cornerbacks at Florida State under Hall of Fame coach Bobby Bowden. That led to a job at North Carolina State, in 2000, where Norm Chow was the offensive coordinator.

"That’s when we started to build our friendship," Demarest said.

"Even though Norm was there only one year, we stayed in touch. I told him, ‘If you ever become a head coach, I’d love the opportunity to work with you.’ Fortunately, it happened for him."

Chow was hired as UH’s head coach in December. Demarest was the last to join Chow’s staff.

"He’s a great coach," Demarest said of Chow.

Demarest will coordinate the six special-team units, although the other assistant coaches will contribute.

"We want to be aggressive," Demarest said. "We want to make sure we play really hard, sound football, but take risks at times, calculated risks. That’s where we are right now."