Batty Returns As OC At His Second Home
Joining 2025 Coaching Staff At Montclair

MONTCLAIR- This is not the first time that Kevin Batty has defied the old adage that ‘You Can’t Go Home Again,’ as he makes his return to Montclair as a key member of head man Ron Anello’s 2025 Mounties football coaching staff as the team’s new offensive coordinator.

 

The novel by Thomas Wolfe which described how a man named George Webber made a return to his original home known as ‘Libya Hill’ only to encounter fierce hatred and outrage from the community where he grew up, may have had a negative connotation in regards to ‘going home’ in a fictionalized account of such a journey back in time, but for the highly-regarded, veteran North Jersey coach who was a big part of planning the offense for three straight NJSIAA North 1, Group 5 playoff championship Mountie gridiron squads from 2012-2014, coming back to Montclair once again may not be like going back to his original boyhood home of Verona, but it’s close enough.

 

“I love Montclair and am excited to be back, and working alongside a terrific head coach in Ron Anello,” said the well-traveled, 58-year-old Batty who has had 12 different coaching stints – including two stints as a head coach at Marist and Verona – at 10 different schools.  “And, while I’m from Verona and enjoyed winning regional and sectional playoff championships during my time there, Montclair is as close to a second home for me to return to as any community I’ve spent time and been a part of through the years.”

 

Batty, who was 33-26 in six seasons (2018-2-2023) as the head coach at his high school alma mater Verona, guided a memorable 12-0 Hillbillies North, Group 2 regional championship team in 2019.

 

He was not rehired at Verona after the 2023 campaign and spent one season as an assistant coach for head man Adam Szuch at Mahwah High School in Bergen County; and as much as he enjoyed his one season with the Thunderbirds, who were 3-5 in 2024, a chance to return to the Essex County area where he has enjoyed much of his time as a coach - and Montclair in particular - was simply too great an opportunity to pass up.

 

“I’ve known Ron Anello for 20 years, have always had great respect for him as a coach and athletic director, and he’s also one of my references on my resume,” said Batty. “When he called and asked if I wanted to be his ‘OC’ (offensive coordinator) I knew right away that it was too good an opportunity to pass on, including the fact I think so much of Montclair and the kids there I always enjoyed working with when I’d been there more than a decade ago.

 

“I know that it’s a very young and inexperienced group of players this time around, but the kids are enthusiastic, they work hard, and their anxious to learn as much as they can about this great sport which I still love to coach while seeing kids develop in positive ways as both players and people.”   

 

For Anello, who lives and breathes Mountie blue since he was a standout lineman for coach Butch Fortunato in the mid-1970s and then twice an assistant coach at Montclair High under Fortunato and Jermain Johnson in two different generations of Mountie football, having an experienced right-hand man like Batty to teach and implement the popular spread attack on the offensive side of the ball, is a real plus as the 2025 fall campaign gets closer each and every day.

 

“I’ve known Kevin a long time and I’m very pleased to have come on board with us,” said the now first-year MHS ‘interim’ head coach for the Mounties. “He’s a great addition to our staff; he knows the Montclair community and he’s very good at teaching the ‘spread’ which is a good offense for the really talented and athletic kids we have in town and at our school.

 

“I’m excited to see how it all comes together. Yeah, we’re young and there aren’t many kids with a lot of varsity football experience, but the interest is growing.

 

“I went out to the middle schools and we have 27 freshmen already signed up to play, and we hope some more will come out as we get closer to August and the start of school in September.

“We have 33 upperclassmen at the moment but hope to add more, and we also have a couple of lacrosse players (rising seniors Adam Schmitt and Dylan Kaelin-Panico) who have come out for football and are very promising new members of our receivers corps.

Among the candidates for the starting quarterback job are senior Jake Martin, junior Elijah Miller and freshman Harold Reynolds, who is the son of former major league baseball player Harold Reynolds, Jr.

“We made the Final 4 in a 7-on-7 at Teaneck," continued Anello. "And, we are in a 7-on-7 in Cedar Grove (Wednesday) July 9 and in Wayne Valley (Wednesday) July 16.”

 

The Mounties begin official pre-season practice on Monday, Aug. 11, with two pre-season scrimmages on tap at Clifton (10 a.m., Monday, Aug. 18) and at West Morris (7 p.m., Aug. 22, at West Morris) leading up to the season opener 6 p.m., Friday, Aug. 29, at St. Thomas Aquinas in Edison. That game was originally slated to be a home opener for MHS; however, finishing touches and full approval of the recently-installed, new the home bleachers that have been installed at Woodman Field still need to be finalized.    

 

The Mounties are also on the road on Friday night, Sept. 5, at Ridgewood, before the home opener at Woodman Field vs. longtime, local rival Bloomfield, 1 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 13. 

 

Batty, a 1995 Verona High School graduate, is known for his effusive personality and ability to game plan in several different facets of the sport, was a linebacker for Central Connecticut State University.

 

His first job in coaching was with John Allen on the Seton Hall Prep football staff from 1992-94 followed by a season working with current Parsippany Hills coach Dave Albano at New Milford in 1995.

 

In 1996 he became Gene Pagnozzi’s assistant for three seasons at Marist before taking over the reins of the Bayonne-based parochial school football program as head coach for five seasons from 1999-2004 when he also became the school’s athletic director.