Stars Align: East Ascension’s Brock Matherne ‘humbled’ to have Dennis Skains join staff
by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Apparently, a 3-7 record in his first season at East Ascension didn’t sit well with head coach Brock Matherne.
A month after hiring former Teurlings Catholic head coach Dane Charpentier to run his offense, Matherne confirmed his hiring of Cecilia High head coach Dennis Skains as his associate head coach. Skains will also be the special teams coordinator, coach the defensive backs, and serve as strength and conditioning coordinator.
“We weren’t happy with what happened last season,” Matherne said. “We don’t ever set expectations that low. We felt we should have won some of the closer games, but from running a program one of our big things when we looked across the field, there was a lot more experience on the other coaching staffs. Our district’s one of the toughest in the state.
“To able to get two guys like that, you take it all in,” Matherne said. “Stuff like this doesn’t happen very often. I’m going to learn as much as I can from these guys for as long as I have them. Just for our kids and community to have these types of guys coming in our program shows how much they believe in what’s going on at East Ascension.”
Charpentier announced his resignation in January following eight years at Teurlings Catholic. He led the Rebels to a 65-32 record and two appearances in the Division II select state semifinals.
Skains, also a Teurlings Catholic graduate, led Cecilia to the Division II non-select state title in December a year after the Bulldogs were runner-up to Opelousas. He spent nine years with the Bulldogs, compiling a 71-39 record, and was the LSWA Class 4A Coach of the Year in 2024 after a 12-3 finish.
“It was an incredibly difficult decision,” said the 46-year-old Skains. “Sometimes you look around and think maybe it’s time for a new voice. Maybe your voice is starting to be not as impressionable as it was in the past and sometimes it’s just time for a change. It took longer than it should have to make a decision but that shows how great this community is and how great the school is.”
The ability for Matherne to land two of the top head coaches in the Acadiana area and bring them to Ascension Parish is rooted in relationships and respect.
Before going to Cecilia, Skains was the head coach at South Lafourche for four years and gave Matherne his first coaching job. Their bond extended back to their time when Matherne was a fierce defensive back at Belle Chasse where Skains was the defensive coordinator under head coach Bob Becnel.
When Skains moved to Cecilia, he hired Matherne as an assistant during the COVID-19 season. That eventually served as a springboard for Matherne to become the head coach at St. Louis Catholic in Lake Charles, but the conversations between the two and their futures together never ceased.
“We’re like-minded people that think the same on a lot of issues,” Skains said. “We’re both very driven and think there’s a certain way to do it. He’s trying to put together a really good staff and he’s doing a good job of it. Since he left in 2020, I tried to hire him every single year and since he’s been a head coach, he’s tried to hire me.
“It’s been brewing for a while,” Skains said. “We talked after last season, but I felt like we had unfinished business (state runner-up) after last season, and I wasn’t going to go anywhere. You get torn because it’s something you built and you’re proud of it because it wasn’t easy. There were years where we had to go through some tough times, and I had to grow and learn how to win here. That took time and I had the support of some really good people.”
Skains felt compelled to thank Cecilia principal Nicole Usie, former school athletic director John Ray Chevalier, Mark Hebert, Cecilia’s representative on the St. Martin Parish School board, and school board president Fred Wiltz.
“They made it possible for this coaching staff to work,” he said. “It was a tough decision. We’ve always known we were going to work together again, we just didn’t know when or where and this just happens to be the situation.”
East Ascension won three games in 2024 and didn’t qualify for the postseason. The driving force in Matherne’s offseason moves was that his team lost three games last season by less than 10 points and wound up dropping their last four games.
“I’m just humbled,” Matherne said. “I text him (Skains) last (Thursday) night and told him how grateful I am for him. I said I didn’t have enough words in my vocabulary to tell how much I love him and appreciate him. He texts back, ‘There’s no words that need to be said. Let’s just go be great.’ That’s the type of guy he is.
“It’s a big win for our program and school, to bring somebody in with that kind of knowledge and experience even to help mold me as a head coach,” he said. “I’m looking forward to being around him as a friend and having a mentor to come help us build East Ascension into what it should be.”
Skains will finish the remainder of the school year and assist with Cecilia’s track team. He plans to take part in the team’s spring training at East Ascension which returns one of the nation’s top offensive linemen in LSU commitment Brysten Martinez.
Part of the allure of this alliance stems from Skains’ desire to work with Charpentier again.
Skains was a first-year coach for Teurlings head coach Sonny Charpentier and the younger Charpentier was a standout wide receiver.
Their relationship continued when Skains coached at South Lafourche and Dane Charpentier was the head coach at Opelousas Catholic and countless phone calls took place between the two friends about joining forces one day.
Skains took over at Cecilia and hired Dane Charpentier as an offensive assistant, a position he held for a year when Charpentier was hired as head coach at Teurlings to follow after his father retired.
“We had both gotten to a point in our careers where we weren’t growing,” Skains said. “We were doing good things, but we knew we weren’t hitting our potential, we knew that we wanted to be better than we were, and we said we wanted to coach together. We said whoever finds a job first, the other will join the other one.”
While Charpentier will handle the defense, Skains will focus on the defense of coordinator Darious Carroll who has been with Matherne since he’s been a head coach. He’ll also add his expertise with the defensive backs, special team’s and the team’s strength program.
“He’s (Charpentier) an unbelievable coach and I think Brock’s an unbelievable coach,” Skains said. “I wouldn’t be going to East Ascension if Brock wouldn’t be there. I believe in him that much. I want to grow and learn and hopefully, I can contribute a little bit also, and hopefully, we can do some good things. It didn’t make it easy to leave Cecilia because it’s become a home for me, and I’ll always feel like I’m a Bulldog.”
Featured Image Courtesy of East Ascension Athletics