(Credit for Photo: Photo Courtesy of Geneva College, Posted on Facebook on April 21st, 2026)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Beaver Falls, PA) The Geneva College Athletic Department recently selected DJ Damazo to be the new head men’s basketball coach after a nationwide search. Damazo will replace Jeff Santasiero, who retired after this past season after 30 years as the head coach of the Golden Tornadoes and 38 years on the men’s basketball staff. Damazo returns to his alma mater for this opportunity, because he graduated from Geneva in 2013. He also played basketball for Geneva and was a two-year starter. He began his coaching career at Blackhawk High School as an assistant before serving as a graduate assistant at Eastern University for two years. He was then hired as the head coach at Valley Forge University in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania in 2017 and led the program for four years. He turned a team that with a 3-17 record into one that posted its highest win total in the program’s Division III history, while also finishing fifth in NCAA Division III in scoring in his final season. Damazo has served as an assistant coach at Grinnell College in Grinell, Iowa for the past five seasons, which included the best three-year stretch in its program’s history, including the recently completed 2025-26 season in which the program achieved the most wins in program history of 22. Grinnell won two Midwest Conference Championships during Damazo’s tenure and advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament both seasons.