Mohner steps down as Fairport AD

Mike Mohner is ready to spend more time with his family, stepping down as athletic director at Fairport after nearly 40 years as an AD and coach for the Skippers and previously for his alma mater Harvey.

With nearly four decades of teaching, coaching and athletic administration under his belt, Mike Mohner will be the first to admit life is grand. Now he’s ready for life to be more “grandkids” than simply grand.

Mohner, who will turn 62 in August, has stepped down as the Fairport athletic director, thus ending an education/coaching career that started back in 1981 as an assistant coach under then-Fairport baseball coach Larry Sudbrook.

“Grandkid-oriented,” said Mohner, when asked what life is going to be like. “My wife and I have a lot of travel plans, and our grandkids — we have two grandsons — will keep us busy.”

Mohner said he is ready to scale things back a bit.

“It was just time,” he said. “I felt there were things I wanted to do with my grandchildren. There’s a real time commitment needed if you want to do the job (of AD) right. I just felt it was time.”

Fairport principal Tom Fazekas said the school district is going through the final stages of naming a new athletic director and will have one in place in the near future. Either way, he said replacing Mohner is a tough task.

“It’s going to be hard to replace him,” Fazekas said. “It’s one of those things where we may never ‘replace’ him. We’ll just find someone to do the job. So much of being an AD is building relationships with coaches and other schools. That just doesn’t happen overnight.”

After five years as an assistant under Sudbrook, Mohner took over the Fairport baseball team in 1986 and led the team for 15 years. He then moved over to his alma mater, Harvey, as an athletic director and principal for 10 years. He took a one-year break after retiring in 2011, but had been back at Fairport for the past five years coaching baseball with Mike Ondo and as AD for the past two years.

“It’s hard (to step down),” Mohner said. “Being around young people keeps you young. I’m certainly going to miss that. I had the best of both worlds. I was at Fairport, where my dad’s family grew up, and I was a Harvey graduate and got to spend time there.

“I’ve been blessed over this period of time.”

If there is one thing Mohner is proud of, it is the two final hires Mohner was part of before resigning. He said the addition of new football coach Cameron Ruff and new volleyball coach Mike Fitzgerald were home run hires for the school district.

“With Cameron, I feel like we got the next Tiger LaVerde,” Mohner said, bringing up the Kirtland head football coach’s name. “That was a great hire, just a great hire. We had 30 applicants, and you never know how things are going to end up, but we really got the right guy.”

On Fitzgerald, Mohner said, “Mike is a police officer and has a great reputation in the AAU circle. It was a great move for us.

“Those two hires — Cameron Ruff and Mike Fitzgerald — are very, very strong.”

Mohner said he still might coach baseball as an assistant with Mike Ondo. And he still plans on attending sporting events on the high school, college and professional levels.

There are other perks to his “retirement,” too.

“Hopefully my golf game gets a little better,” he said with a chuckle. “And my wife will be glad our yard will get more attention. The Fairport baseball field has been ‘my yard’ for the last number of years.”

Mohner