Matt Skala has joined some elite company.

Shortly after it was announced that he was one of the 16 finalists for the 2024 Butch Nash Assistant Coach of the Year Award, Skala was officially named the winner of the prestigious honor handed out annually by the Minnesota Football Coaches Association.

Skala will be honored on Saturday, April 6 during the MFCA’S annual banquet that will also feature Jeff Williams’ Hall-of-Fame enshrinement ceremony.

Skala becomes the seventh OHS coach to win the Butch Nash, joining Ken Bey, Ed Draheim, Delles Solie, Marc Achterkirch, Doug Wanous and Jerry Eggermont.

This past season marked exactly 20 years since Skala first joined the Huskies’ coaching staff after spending  one year as the offensive coordinator for 2003 WIAA state champion, Eau Claire Regis.

Skala — who has been one of Williams’ top offensive assistants for more than a decade and oversees the varsity running backs — has either coached or played in six state championship games in two different states, most notably serving on the Huskies’ staff for each of their three Class 5A state titles in 2013, 2017 and 2018.

After a slow start to the 2023 season in which the team averaged just 94.5 rushing yards per game in the first four outings, the Huskies turned things around in Week 5 and increased their per-game output by more than 50 yards to 145.4 YPG over the final seven games and scored 19 of their 22 rushing TDs in the stretch.

Skala also helped cultivate Brennan Sletten from a seldom-used backup with seven career carries entering his senior season into an bona-fide workhorse tailback and potent offensive weapon. In the last 10 years alone, Skala has been the position coach for back-to-back Gatorade Player of the Year, Jason Williamson, and five other all-league running backs, including Sletten.

As a team, the Huskies rebounded from a rare non-winning season in 2022 and posed an 8-3 (.727) overall record, capturing both the Northstar South-Maroon District and Section 1-5A championships.

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