Aaron Skinner, the athletic director at Bishop Diego, announced Thursday that his was stepping down from the position and moving to Oregon for a head coaching job and teaching position.
He accepted the job as the head football coach at Oregon City High School
Skinner, a Bishop Diego alum (Class of 2008) will finish out the school year at his position. His last day is June 30.
He is returning to the Pacific Northwest, where he attended college at the University of Oregon worked as an undergraduate football assistant for the Ducks. He later served as an assistant coach at Marist Catholic School in Eugene, Ore., and at West Linn High.
After graduating from Oregon, he attended Portland State and earned a master’s degree.
Skinner was hired as Bishop’s AD in January of 2020.
“I can’t even begin to express how fortunate I am to have been given the opportunity to come back to a place that did so much for me when I was growing up and give back to the current (and now past) students at Bishop.
Diego,” he said in a statement. “While there are so many things that I will miss about being at Bishop, I will most greatly miss the relationships that I’ve developed with the students, coaches and colleagues. I’ve had an opportunity to work with some amazing people, whom I respect greatly, and can’t thank them enough for all that I’ve learned from being in their presence.
“I want to specifically thank Karen Regan for her leadership and support and Tom Crawford for being an unbelievable mentor.”
Skinner was a running back for Crawford’s Bishop team that played in the 2007 CIF-SS final against Santa Clara.
“We are grateful for Aaron’s service to the Bishop Diego community,” said school president Karen Regan. “The contributions he made to our program have been invaluable and he will be greatly missed.”
Skinner faced some difficult challenges just a few months after he was hired at Bishop.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools and athletic programs nationwide.
He was instrumental in obtaining approval from the Santa Barbara County Public Health on July 6, 2020 which allowed the Bishop Diego student-athletes to return to campus, albeit outdoors and socially distant, to do conditioning and simply be around each other. This was months before other local schoosl returned to organized conditioning practices.
“One of my greatest accomplishments during my short tenure was getting
our student-athletes back on our campus in early July 2020 for conditioning practices,” Skinner said. “With hindsight being 20-20, we now see the effects that the pandemic and staying home had on our youth and I am very proud that we were able to provide that opportunity just four months after everything shut down.”
While his tenure is short, the Bishop athletic programs enjoyed great success under his leadership. The Cardinals had three programs win CIF-SS championships in the 2021-2022 school year: girls volleyball, girls soccer, and boys basketball.
The girls volleyball title and was the school’s first since 1979 and both the girls soccer and boys basketball titles were the first in school history.
In addition, in 2021, Clara McDonald of Bishop won the school’s first individual CIF-SS track & field championship (Shot Put) since 1984.
The Cardinals won 13 league championships across a number of
programs in his time as athletic director.
Skinner also oversaw upgrades to numerous campus facilities, including both the girls and boys locker rooms, the athletic training room, and the weight room, among other smaller projects
He also held the department’s first Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony since 2009.
In addition, he served as the Tri-Counties Athletic Association vice president and CIF representative for the Frontier League. He also coached football, most recently as the defensive coordinator in the program’s first year in the rugged Marmonte League, where the team advanced to the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs and reached the semifinals.