Cheney's Skaff, McGee voted top GSL coaches

CHENEY - Cheney wrestling left Tacoma and Mat Classic IIIV a few weeks ago minus sought after state titles.

However, they returned home to be honored in a memorable way, landing Greater Spokane League accolades with Coach-of-the-Year awards for both boys and girls - each a first-year head coach.

Brian Skaff guided Cheney's boys to a 5-4 regular season record in GSL dual meets while Jeremy McGee took the reins of a new girls team that five of its members selected for all-league honors.

In addition to the GSL boys' coach section for Skaff, Cheney's assistants were named the staff of the year and Jacob Powers the top middle school coach.

While Skaff was new as a head coach for the Blackhawks, he's spent close to a quarter-century with the program in various assistant roles.

Brian Skaff

"I can't do this without my good assistant coaches," Skaff said of his individual honor that was shared with Mead's Phil McLean who led the Panthers to a third consecutive 3A state title.

Those assistants were Brad Rasmussen, Jared Lacambra, Ezra Anderson and Dane Hall.

According to Skaff the award has a lot of elements attached to it. "I think just where kids carry themselves, the way our kids wrestle," he explained, adding "We get good kids, good athletes, (who are) respectable, polite."

As a staff and program, Skaff suggested Cheney has built "A good rapport with all the teams in the GSL."

"All of us coaches are in this for the same game," Skaff said. "We love the sport of wrestling, but we love kids and love seeing them succeed outside of wrestling."

Two Blackhawks wrestlers, Mason Bennett and Trenton Moore were also first-team All-GSL selections.

Skaff is also one of many coaches who juggles his coaching passion with a work schedule other than that of a classroom teacher. He's spent 30 years as a respiratory therapist at Holy Family Hospital in Spokane – plus he teaches in the program at Spokane Community College.

He credited his wife for the support she lends. "Allowing us to be able to do this as a huge blessing," Skaff said.

Jeremy McGee

Following years as an assistant, McGee landed as the coach for Cheney's first stand-along girls' team.

Despite admitting he did not want to take on the added responsibility of a head coach, McGee saddled the responsibility quite well.

Under his guidance five members were named to All-GSL teams: Jennifer Tian, Jalisca Holmgren and Paige McGee all first-team with Gizzell Ramos, Addison Lathrop and Ireland Chodorski on second.

This, considering "Over 60 percent of our girls never wrestled before, so they were mostly new to wrestling and I was new to being a head coach," McGee wrote in an email. 

It was especially gratifying that the vote came from peers.

"It's always good to know your peers who you essentially wrestle against notice when you do well," McGee said.

What did they notice that swayed the vote McGee's way?

"I think a few things set us apart," McGee said. "We had girls get on the podium every week and a few of them were able to win tournaments which was really cool."

Among those were Paige McGee (140 pounds) won the Eastmont tournament as a freshman on the first weekend of the season; Jalisca Holmgren won the Royal Tournament and Ireland Chodorwski (145) won the M2 Mallet at Rogers.

"Most of all the athletes just made me look good," McGee said. "They showed up every day bought in to what I knew we could build together, and they crushed it."

McGee pointed to significant support from both his assistants, and the administrative side at CHS.

Vivianna Daniel, a freshman at Eastern Washington University and who wrestled at Sunnyside, veteran coach Jason Williams and Hannah Bowles were a big help to the team, McGee noted.

"Having the support from our athletic director Ken Ryan sure helped McGee said. "We went to a lot of tournaments across the state to get the competition we needed to compete and without that we would not have been as good as we ended up being."

Jacob Powers

This veteran of coaching at Westwood Middle School has helped establish the foundation for many young wrestlers who arrives in the Blackhawks wrestling room.

Lately he's expanding that role with the establishment of the the Kingdom Wrestling "Little Guy" program in Airway Heights.

"It really filled the need for our program," Skaff said. The Cheney Hawks program was "Just jam packed with 80 kids" so Kingdom has diverted some of that crowd.

Powers' follows the concepts found at the high school.

"He coaches the same things we coach at the high school, so they come into the room ready to go," Skaff said. "It's a huge, huge, huge weight off our back, you know; they're ready to go once they hit high school wrestling."