Camp Staff

Campers at the B-W Baseball Holiday Skills Camp are coached by a hard-working staff that loves baseball. Our directors and instructors have nearly one hundred years of combined experience as players and coaches for high school, college and minor league teams. They are joined by an enthusiastic group of B-W baseball student-athletes who enjoy working one-on-one with campers and who are proud to be role models for these young ballplayers.

Joe Kilburg | Camp Director

Joe Kilburg is the hitting and catchers coach at Baldwin-Wallace College. Before joining B-W’s staff, he coached high school baseball at Cleveland Central Catholic for 20 years and was named North Coast Conference Coach of the Year three times.

For the past 25 years, Coach Kilburg has coached summer teams at all levels of amateur baseball, including the highly successful Parma MSI Baseball Club. In addition to his coaching assignments and his work as an instructor at the well-respected Phil Bova Baseball Camp, Coach Kilburg is an associate scout with the Cleveland Indians.

As a biology and general science teacher at Cleveland Central Catholic High School, Coach Kilburg has been named Teacher of the Year and honored as a Teacher of Excellence by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. He has also been nominated for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching and included in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.

In 1995, Baseball America named Coach Kilburg, his wife Judy and their sons, Joe and Jim, as Ohio’s Amateur Baseball Family of the Year.

Bob Fisher | Camp Advisor

Bob Fisher is the head baseball coach at Baldwin-Wallace College. He took over the coaching job at his alma mater in 1968 and has guided the Yellow Jackets to 669 victories.

Coach Fisher’s teams have racked up an impressive Ohio Athletic Conference record of 371–240–8 (.607). They have won three regular-season OAC championships, played in 17 OAC postseason playoffs and captured the OAC tournament championship in 1985. They have also played in four NCAA regional tournaments. Coach Fisher has been named OAC Coach of the Year four times.

In addition to his baseball duties at B-W, Coach Fisher is professor and chair of health promotion and education, having completed his Ph.D. in health education at Ohio State University in 1988.

Ken Ciolek | Instructor

B-W pitching coach Ken Ciolek joined the Yellow Jackets coaching staff after 22 years as the head baseball coach at Lakewood High School.

During his tenure at Lakewood, Coach Ciolek compiled a .724 winning percentage and never had a losing season. He was named Lake Erie League Coach of the Year eight times and Northeast Ohio Coach of the Year four times as he led the Rangers to 20 or more wins in 11 seasons and eight LEL championships.

A past president of the Greater Cleveland Baseball Coaches Association, Coach Ciolek was inducted into the Lakewood Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

Chris Check | Instructor

Chris Check is B-W’s outfield coach and the head coach of the Yellow Jackets’ junior varsity squad.

Coach Check is a 1985 graduate of B-W. He was a three year varsity letterman on the Jackets baseball team and was the starting right fielder for the school’s 1985 OAC championship team. His defensive play that season won him the team’s Gold Glove outstanding fielder award. After graduating from B-W, he earned his master’s degree in exercise physiology at the University of South Alabama, where he served as a graduate assistant coach with the Jaguars’ baseball and basketball teams.

Coach Check is a highly regarded hitting instructor in the northeast Ohio area. He has been tutoring individuals, groups and teams at the high school, college and professional levels of baseball for nearly a decade.

B-W Baseball Players | Group Leaders

An enthusiastic group of B-W baseball players leads the campers through their drills and practice sessions.

Among the Yellow Jackets who taught small groups and worked one-on-one with campers at last year’s Skills Camp were:

Mike Brisky: Senior outfielder from Berea High School
Cody Kidd: Senior center fielder from Wellington High School
Brian Boveington: Junior first baseman from Stow High School
Scott Luthman: Junior pitcher from Celina High School
Jimmy Martin: Junior shortstop from Euclid High School
Justin Novak: Junior pitcher from Strongsville High School
Nick Flanigan: Sophomore pitcher from Wadsworth High School
Joe Wickens: Sophomore catcher & first baseman from Wooster High School
Matt Halata: Freshman outfielder from Olmsted Falls High School