Mitchell Keady has been selected to lead Wayne State College’s esports program as its coach full-time.
After serving two months as a part-time interim coach, Wayne State College graduate Mitchell Keady has been given a full-time position as head coach of the esports program. As a former player and captain for a team, being able to once again lead students was described by Keady as a great opportunity.
“Being a head coach has been a dream job of mine,” Keady said. “Being able to coach is a huge privilege. I’m very grateful that I’m able to do it.”
Keady first came to WSC after transferring from Des Moines Area Community College.
At WSC, his team won the Rockstar Invitational tournament in Mankato, Minnesota in 2022. Later, Keady would serve as captain for the “Smash Bros” team. The current captain of the “Smash Bros.” team, senior Trey McQuay, described what Keady was like as a captain.
“My sophomore year, Mitch became the captain and he was the rock of the team. I mean, there was an undisputed gap in player skill,” McQuay said. “He was able to not only coach us but keep morale up. He was able to do half the work of four people, so we wouldn’t have had half the success my sophomore year if we didn’t have Mitch.”
In summer of 2025, Drew Kurtenbach, the esports coach at the time, left Wayne State College to pursue a career opportunity at Western Michigan University.
“It was definitely a tough decision,” Kurtenbach said. “It just kind of came down to what the next step in my career was. Going to Western Michigan University just felt like it opened a lot of doors long-term. It was a step in the right direction for my career and my personal life too.”
John Schwarte, the associate athletic director at WSC and director supervisor of the esports program, had to find someone to help fill the role. According to him, Keady was “a pretty easy selection.”
“I’ve known Mitch for a long time. He was one of our “Smash” players when we first launched the program back in ’20,” Schwarte said. “When we found out our previous coach, coach Kurtenbach, was leaving, Mitch was my first call to try to bring some stability while we were on the search for a new head coach.”
While working as interim coach Keady faced many challenges. He continued to work full-time at his previous job, which often had long hours.
There were also student workers who helped manage the responsibilities of the esports program. Gabriel Dilley, a junior at Wayne State, handles the program’s social media as the account manager and graphic designer. He also communicates with teams to ensure that they are ready for games.
“Most of the time I’m just texting a lot of people, getting things sorted out and organized, making sure teams are ready to practice [and are] actually coming in for practices,” Dilley said.
The esports program couldn’t go on forever without a full-time coach. Schwarte began a search for potential candidates of full-time coach, with Keady on the list of options.
“It’s just like any other position on campus,” Schwarte said. “We open it up to a nationwide search and we just let the search kind of grow.”
Schwarte said that he was looking for three main things in a coach. Those were trustworthiness, integrity, and being enjoyable to work with. Once the search was narrowed down, the captains were asked to interview them in-person.
McQuay said that there were concerns about bias from himself and other students because most of the captains knew Keady, so they tried to keep that in check.
“He put across the idea of trying to make sure that he’s as calm as possible going into a situation and while also allowing the captain to take care of it himself,” Peabody said. “I’ve talked to Mitch a couple of times before in the den for practices and he seems like a really nice guy who love esports.”
Keady said that when he got the call saying that he’d been selected for the full-time position, he immediately accepted.
Now that the esports program has a full-time coach, they can start going to in-person events. The next big event is “Kato Clash” in Mankato, Minnesota. The teams for “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” and “Rocket League” will travel to Minnesota and compete with seven other schools. This is the same place that Keady won a championship in 2022, only he is now going as a coach instead of a player.
