MONTCLAIR- He was once a power forward for coach Greg Tynes at Clifford Scott High School where he was a teammate of then future George Washington University stars Mike Brown and Troy Webster before graduating in 1981.
Brown went on to an 11-year career in the NBA and Webster was a draft choice of the Nets.
And, even if his high school alma mater no longer exists since Scott merged with East Orange in the fall of 2002 to form East Orange Campus High School, Tony Jones is still going strong today both as a longtime Science teacher and currently in the midst of his 26th season guiding Montclair Kimberley Academy’s basketball team.
He has the current, second-longest tenure of any hoops coach in Essex County. Sandy Pyonin has been guiding the team at Golda Och (formerly Solomon Schechter) for more than 50 years, while right behind Jones are both Eric McElroy at Verona and Shawn McCray at Newark Central who are in their 24th and 20th year, respectively, at their respective schools.
Jones’ 2025-2026 MKA team is his youngest yet with no seniors on the roster and one which is going through the inevitable growing pains while competing in the Super Essex Conference’s fifth division, the Freedom, which does include an Essex County Top 10 team in Shabazz.
“We’re definitely young, but we have a bunch of good kids who come to practice ready to work and want to learn,” said the longtime MKA head hoops honcho (326-292). “How well we will do depends a great deal on how we defend and how we respond to the different challenges in each game which are all unique in their own way.
“What I love games like our one against rival Newark Academy (57-46 Cougars defeat on Jan. 8) is that we have another great opportunity to see where we need to get better, and that is always an approach which is part of both the fun and challenge in coaching.
“I still enjoy doing all this, as I did way back when I arrived at MKA in the fall of 2000, and a quarter century later I’m definitely older (62) and I hope wiser!”
He’s definitely has had a variety of players to work with through the years, some of whom have moved on to be successes as lawyers, doctors, teachers or in the investment and banking worlds, or as coaches themselves.
Jones has even coached one of the NBA’s best backcourt performers during the last decade in Kyrie Irving from West Orange, who spent his first two years of high school at MKA where he scored his first 1,000 points before transferring to St. Patrick’s in Elizabeth where he played for coach Kevn Boyle.
He also coached a major league pitcher in former Cleveland Indians reliever Frank Herrmann, a 3-sport standout at MKA who also pitched in the College World Series for Harvard University, and Matt Lane, another 3-sport star for the Cougars, then a collegiate lacrosse standout at Syracuse University, and presently the head lacrosse coach at Non-Public A power Don Bosco Prep.
“I heard about Kyrie from former Mount St. Dominic coach Jerry Aquino, who had called me and said that the young man was not interested in attending either West Orange or Seton Hall Prep and wanted to be able to play right away,” Jones recalled. “When I watched him play I could see right away that he had a high basketball IQ, was a good finisher around the basket, and could certainly dribble, pass and shoot at a high level.
“When Kyrie was at MKA he fit in very well, not only with the team concept on our basketball team but also as a student who was very comfortable with all his classmates. As a freshman and sophomore, he would sometimes watch video of games and future opponents with me and just loved to study the game that he loved to play and wanted to be the best at.”
A positive influence on other local players attending MKA and play basketball was the late N.J. Governor and longtime state Senator Richard Codey, who just recently passed away.
Gov. Codey coached youth basketball in West Orange for many years and helped in encouraging former MKA standouts such as Aasim Cunningham (Hobart College), Josh Cherry (Amherst) and Kevin Brown (American University) to attend the Montclair private school and play basketball for the Cougars.
“You clearly knew where you stood with Gov. Codey,” said Jones. “And, if he wasn’t happy with something we were doing he’d tell me; but - more than anything - he was always a strong supporter of the program and attended many of our games through the years.
“I am eternally grateful to him for helping my son Brandon in search for his first job in the mental health field, which Gov. Codey and his wife, Mary Jo, always had a strong interest in, while always trying to help as many people as they could.”
Brandon Jones, who excelled in basketball both at MKA and Amherst College where he was a member of three Division III Final 4 teams, including a national championship squad in 2007, is now an experienced psychologist in Massachusetts where he is also a professor and director of the graduate program at Regis College in Weston, Mass.
How much longer ‘TJ’ coaches at MKA remains to be seen. He has recently been joined by his wife Celeste - who he married in 1988 and was his high school sweetheart – in enjoying the arrival of their third grandchild, Shiloh, born on Oct. 13, 2025, andis the son of their daughter Breanna and her husband Sham.
Brandon Jones and his wife Kim have two daughters, Amelia, 8, and Audrey, 5.
“We look forward to hopefully many years of enjoying being a grandparent,” said Jones with a smile. “Teaching, coaching and family are what it’s been all about!”
NOTES- Brendan Powell, a 2018 MKA graduate, is MKA’s JV basketball coach and part of a staff that includes Jones’ longtime right-hand man Anthony Rea, who is also MKA’s head football coach, and first-year assistant Jamel Fields, whose main focus in on player development and also directs the Garden State Warriors AAU program in Orange…Among the young players to watch on the current MKA roster are juniors Joe Morante, the team captain, and Khalil Shah-Brown, along with sophomores RJ Michel, Carter Convey and Braeden Dawes, who is the son of MKA girls lacrosse coach Kristen Dawes and grandson of the late, great MKA boys lacrosse coach Noll Klank….MKA (4-6, 3-2), which roared past Belleville, 65-34, on Thursday (Jan. 15) hosts SEC-Freedom Division-leading Shabazz on Tuesday (Jan. 20) at 4 p.m. before visiting Cedar Grove on Thursday afternoon (Jan. 22) and neighboring Montclair High School 2 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 24.
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