The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Skilton excited to take helm at Mentor
Ken Skilton helped guide a number of wrestlers at Mentor to the highest level of competition in Ohio. Now he wants to do the same with the Mentor girls soccer program.
Skilton has been named the new head coach of the Cardinals, succeeding Corey Robishaw, who coached the past two years at Mentor before departing.
While Skilton is widely known in the district as a wrestling coach who helped Jack Young and Keith Pollack to state runner-up finishes during 21 years of coaching wresting (13 as head coach), Skilton has actually coached more years in soccer than any other.
This will be his 28th year coaching soccer on various levels, including with the Mentor Wave club program and also as a former varsity assistant at Mentor with the boys and girls programs. He was JV coach for Tom Mackar for eight years, including in 1994 when Mentor won the state title, three years as an assistant with thencoach Brady Dean, and also coached JV for a year with former girls coach Andy Dubeansky.
Additionally, he played for the legendary Mackar in the 1980s.
“I’ve been coaching soccer for 28 years — forever,” Skilton said with a laugh June 8, the first day he was able to hold workouts with his new team because of the novel coronavirus limitations throughout the spring.
“Soccer was one of the biggest reasons I gave up coaching wrestling. I had to make a decision to coach the teams my daughter was playing with or coach wrestling, because it’s a year-round commitment. As I was sitting in gymnasiums coaching wrestling, my club teams were playing elsewhere and I realized I’d rather be with them.”
Now he is in charge of a Mentor girls soccer program that has been ousted from district play in each of the past two seasons. A year ago, the secondseeded Cardinals lost to Mayfield, 1-0, in a district final. The previous year, Mentor fell to Madison in a district semifinal via penalty kicks.
“We want to take it to the next level,” Skilton said of his goal for the program. “We want to compete with the top teams in the state. That’s the goal. If everybody works hard and stays healthy, I think we’ll be very competitive toward that goal.”
Because of his experience coaching club soccer with the Mentor Wave, Skilton is no stranger to most of the upperclassmen on his squad, such as Emma Potter, Alleigh Stout, Kiley Kolschetzky,
Abby Piks, Alyssa Blackburn and Kate Lohrey — all returning starters from a year ago.
A number of others also got varsity action a year ago.
“A lot of the older kids I coached in club,” Skilton said. “When this opportunity arose, some of the parents and kids asked me if I’d apply for it. I said I’d pray about it, and of course I asked my wife. She said I should do it, so I got back into it.”
Mentor Athletic Director Jeff Cassella gave Skilton’s application and hiring two thumbs up.
“A definite no-brainer,” Cassella termed Skilton’s hiring. “He has coached both boys and girls soccer here as an assistant. He ran a very successful wrestling program. He teaches here (honors pre-calculus). Add to that the level of respect he has here with the students in our district and yeah, it was an absolute no-brainer.”
Under normal circumstances, Skilton would not even be holding workouts with his new team yet. But because of the coronavirus, which wiped out the winter tournament season as well as the entire spring season, the OHSAA has allowed coaches in all sports to hold workouts with their players — under certain guidelines that adhere to social distancing — starting this month.
Skilton’s workouts at the Mentor soccer facility that started June 8 are non-contact and limited somewhat by the OHSAA and Gov. Mike DeWine as the battle with COVID-19 rages on, but he and the players are glad to be back at it in some form now rather than when they normally would be at the beginning of August.
“We did a lot of Zoom meetings, and I created workouts they could do while we were apart,” Skilton said of the past few months. “It was definitely a new challenge for players to get ready for the season on their own.
“But now it’s great to be back out here with them. The kids are dedicated to get better. As long as we keep that mindset, good things are going to happen.”