Regional schedule
Monday GamesRegion 3-AAA› Rhea County at Ooltewah, 7› Soddy-Daisy at Cookeville, 7:30Region 4-AA› Chattanooga Christian at DeKalb County, 6› Livingston Academy at Sequatchie County, 7Region 3-AA› Polk County at Central, 5› Red Bank at Sequoyah, 5:30Region 3-A› Sale Creek at Silverdale Baptist Academy, 5› Arts & Sciences at Marion County, 6Region 2-A› Oneida at Meigs County, 6
Wes Skiles has spent the past 20 years as a coach. He’s almost ready to make the transition to cheerleader.
Not that he’s in a big hurry. He and his Soddy-Daisy Lady Trojans will travel to Cookeville for a TSSAA Region 3-AAA softball semifinal at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Monday.
All Division I teams, including 12 others from the Chattanooga area, are scheduled to play region semifinals Monday.
Skiles already has made it known this will be his last season as head coach at Soddy-Daisy. The game against Cookeville is an elimination game and could be his last, but he hopes not.
“Whether it’s this week, whether it’s in two weeks it’s sinking in,” Skiles said. “I am ready to spend time with my daughter. I’m already looking ahead to that. Heck, for 20 springs in a row, I’ve been coaching something.”
Monday’s winners advance to Wednesday’s region finals. Region champions host Friday’s sectional round and runners-up will travel. Only sectional winners advance to the state tournament.
Skiles’ daughter, Reese, is a fifth-grader at Bright School who will attend Baylor next school year. She’s the Skiles’ only child and a swimmer and volleyball player.
Skiles’ coaching jobs the past two decades have included assistant positions in softball, baseball, basketball and football at Loftis Middle, as well as stints as head coach for softball and girls’ basketball there. He spent some time as Janet Tate’s assistant in softball at Hixson High School before coming to Soddy-Daisy, where he was a softball assistant from 2007 until moving into the head position in 2013.
And he was his daughter’s volleyball coach at Bright for one season, although he confessed to being “more the sponsor than the coach.”
“The two things I care about with her are to have a positive attitude and give your best effort,” Skiles said. “That’s the only two things I can tell her. I don’t know anything about swimming or volleyball.”
Soddy-Daisy’s softball program has won at least 20 games each of Skiles’ four seasons as coach. The Lady Trojans won District 6 championships in each of his first two years, and the 2014 season also included a Region 3 title and a third-place finish in the state tournament.
The 2013 season ended with a sectional loss at Smyrna. And right before the Lady Trojans made the trip, Skiles received news that assistant coach Lamar Lasley, a fellow assistant when Clifford Kirk was in charge of the program, had died of a heart attack. Skiles thought it was best to go play but not tell the team until afterward.
“Lamar’s wife, Dana, told me, ‘Go ahead and go. It’s what Lamar would’ve wanted you to do,'” Skiles said. “Then it was like my heart said I have permission to go.”
Skiles said he made a vow then to see that freshman class through high school, and Grayson Brown, Macy Bryant and Jordan Woodward are now seniors.
“I’ve been with him since sixth grade,” said Brown, a third baseman who attended Loftis and is the only Lady Trojan who has played for Skiles each of the past six years. “We want to make it as far as we possibly can, for him and for all of us. We want to go out strong.
“We know what we have to do. We’ve just got to go out there and play ball like we know how.”
Brown said Skiles instills confidence in his players. Junior catcher Cameren Swafford, who Skiles lets call all the pitches, feels the same way. With Swafford handling the pitching staff of Woodward and juniors Breanna Britton and Shonna Penney, Soddy-Daisy has a 27-10 record.
“He’s been really encouraging,” Swafford said. “He just wants us to do our best. Usually if we make a mistake, he shakes it off. He’s really a nice guy. He makes it fun to come to practice.”
Skiles said he learned a lot about softball from Kirk, whose Lady Trojans teams won eight state championships. And he never minded being the guy who immediately followed someone of considerable influence.
“Because I don’t care what anybody else says,” Skiles said. “I don’t get caught up in all that. If Clifford did this or Clifford did that, that doesn’t concern me. This is a different group of girls now. The pitching rubber is a different distance. It’s back at 43 feet. I don’t even like comparing my team this year to last year. There are so many factors that come into play.”
Skiles said former Soddy-Daisy assistant Jackie Freeland, known by her maiden name McClain when she was an all-state player at GPS and All-American at Alabama, was good about “lifting our spirits” in the aftermath of the loss of Lasley. She was still on staff last year when the Lady Trojans’ season ended sooner than they had hoped in the district tournament.
Skiles, assisted by Travis Hale this year, recalled being upset about the way last season ended. Then his daughter said something that made him realize it might be time to leave coaching behind.
“We got put out after getting beat and she said, ‘That means I get my daddy back,'” Skiles said. “When a 10-year-old girl says that, that daddy better listen.”
So does Skiles, like he said, really not care what anybody else says?
There seems to be at least one person whose words matter.
“She’s been very supportive about it,” he said of his daughter’s perspective toward his coaching career. “I feel like it’s been long enough of her being supportive of me. It’s time for me to give back.”
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@times freepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.