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Kevin Batty, who was the offensive coordinator for three straight playoff championship teams at Montclair (2012-2014) before becoming the head coach at Verona where he led Hillbillies to 12-0 North, Group 2 Regional championship in 2019, is back at Montclair as the Mounties' new 'OC' for the 2025 season. In third photo he holds NJSIAA trophy with Montclair senior standouts, QB Elijah Robinson (left) and RB-LB Shaquan Oliver, after the Mounties captured third straight N1G5 title in 2014. (SC photos and by Bob Thomas)

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

By Steve Tober
For sidelinechatter.com

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 Brings Extensive Background In Second Stint On Montclair’s Staff
 
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.
 
In 2004 he joined Al-Tarik White’s staff at Weequahic and was a member of the Indians’ Central Jersey, Group 2 playoff championship coaching staff in 2006 along with another key assistant who would later be a head coach in Chris Strumolo.
 
In 2007 he had his first stint as an assistant at Wayne Hills, located not far from his Wayne home, where he worked with Chris Olsen, and was a member of two playoff championship coaching staffs with the Patriots during his three-year stay at the Passaic County school.
 
In 2010 he spent one season as Strumolo’s offensive coordinator at Belleville before then spending the 2011 season with legendary coach Greg Toal and the Don Bosco Prep Ironmen who would win both a state and national championship that fall.
 
In 2012 he began a very successful 4-year stint as John Fiore’s offensive coordinator at Montclair, and was an integral member of a coaching staff that guided the Mounties to those three straight North 1, Group 5 playoff titles from 2012-2014 with a talented team that featured first-team all-state QB Elijah Robinson.
 
Batty left Fiore’s staff after the 2015 campaign a season that concluded when the Mounties lost a heartbreaking playoff semifinal game at Ridgewood, but his reign with the Mounties had been a very productive one.
 
From there he returned to Wayne Hills for one season, working with Olsen’s successor Wayne Demikoff.
 
In 2017 he was the offensive coordinator for another friend in coaching and another former Montclair assistant, Rae Oliver, at East Orange Campus.
 
After longtime coach Lou Racioppe was not rehired following the 2017 season, and after a college coach Tony Sorrentino first accepted and then turned down the head coaching position with the Hillbillies, the Verona school administration, including then AD Bob Merkler, selected Batty as their football coach for the 2018 season. 

During the day he is a culinary arts teacher at the Essex Valley School in West Caldwell.  

All the while, coaching high school football has been a big part of his life which is centered around wife Toni-Ann, a Cedar Grove High School graduate, and their two children, Alyxandria, 24, and Gracie-Ann, who is 9 ½.

 
Montclair High head football coaches since 1920:
Clarence Woodman 1920-1925- 6 seasons (22-27-7, 48.5%)
Ken Sprague 1926-1933- 8 seasons (31-35-6, 47.2%)
Ernie McCoy 1934-39- 6 seasons (23-20-6, 53.1 %)
Clary Anderson 1940-41, 1946-1968- 25 seasons (197-22-5, 89.1 %)
Butch Fortunato 1942-45, 1969-1983- 19 seasons (115-52-8, 68%)
Jack Davies 1984-1990- 7 seasons (52-18-2, 73.6%)
Len Rivers 1991-1992- 2 seasons (7-10-1, 41.7 %)
Ed Lebida 1993-2009- 17 seasons (130-54, 70.7%)
John Fiore 2010-2020- 11 seasons (93-31, 75%)
Pete Ramiccio 2021- 1 season (5-5, 50 %)
Jermain Johnson 2022-2024 - 3 seasons (12-19, 39%)
Ron Anello 2025
 
MONTCLAIR 2025 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE:
 
Scrimmages:
 
 Monday, Aug. 18, at Clifton, 10 a.m.
 
 Friday, Aug. 22, at West Morris, 7 p.m.
 
 Regular Season Games:
 
 Friday, Aug. 29: at St. Thomas Aquinas, 6 p.m.
 
 Friday, Sept. 5: at Ridgewood, 7 p.m.
 
 Saturday, Sept. 13, vs. Bloomfield, 1 p.m.
 
 Saturday, Sept. 20: vs. East Orange, 1 p.m.
 
 Friday, Sept. 26, at Ramapo, 6 p.m.
 
 Saturday, Oct. 4: vs. Union City, 1 p.m.
 
 Saturday, Oct. 11: vs. West Orange, 1 p.m.
 
 Saturday, Oct. 18: vs. Barringer, 1 p.m.
 
 Friday, Oct. 24, at Livingston, 7 p.m.
 

Follow Steve Tober on 'X' @Chattermeister  
 
 
 
 
 
 


       

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

Kevin Batty was 33-26 in six seasons as Verona's head coach where he guided his 2019 squad to a perfect 12-0 record including the sectional and regional playof championships.

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