Blue & White Club Stepping Up
To Help Keep Freshmen Sports

MONTCLAIR- Athletic Director Matt Belford knows full well that it’s going to take a community-wide effort in order to help keep Montclair High School athletics afloat as the school district continues to deal with a 19.6 million budget deficit which has rocked the history-laden Essex County town, including with the elimination of funding for freshmen sports in the upcoming 2026-2027 school year.

Enter the recently-formed Blue & White Club, a group of  ardent enthusiasts for promoting all Montclair sports, as they look to work to help raise funds and a township-wide spirit for all Mountie sports programs, including the now threatened high school freshmen teams.

“The freshmen cuts have been made and that includes not only funding for the teams, but also affecting other important areas such as bus transportation, officials, security and uniforms – basically everything,” said Belford, who arrived on the scene less than two years ago and has found himself immersed almost immediately in difficult and challenging times for Mountie sports.

"We have the Blue & White Club which is going to try and help all our programs affected, and it doesn’t matter if we’re talking basketball, soccer, bowling, crew, fencing – everyone is going to need our support moving forward.

“I’ll do my best to be a go-between wherever I can help, and we have some great people involved who truly care about trying to make the entire high school sports experience something special for all our student-athletes.

“We don’t want to lose freshmen sports, and we certainly don’t want to reduce opportunities for our students at all levels of high school sports.”

The Blue & White Club will be holding a special gathering 7 p.m. Thursday (April 16) in the high school’s LGI room inviting all those interested in learning more and perhaps helping out in the mission ahead to try and help keep freshmen sports alive while also boosting the fortunes and spirit of all Mountie athletic programs.

“This is all about community building and everyone has to understand that we need to have equity around our efforts for all Montclair sports as we look to keep our freshmen teams while also building back Mountie pride,” said Laura Quiros, vice-president and member of the executive board for the Blue & White Club which is a registered 501C3 organization. “Our teams have their own booster clubs which help raise money for their sports, including various fund-raisers, which are great; but we have an even larger effort in front of us now, and we’re hoping to get many different people involved in our efforts moving forward, including individuals and business leaders.

“We have a deadline for ourselves to try and raise $176,000 by June 1 to help support our freshmen teams, but what we’re doing is not just about monetarily supporting the teams; it’s also about raising community spirit revolving around the importance of all Mountie sports!”

The Blue & White Club, which is still in its early stages since being formed a few months back, is determined to be involved in promoting the overall picture revolving around MHS athletics.

“The impetus or genesis of the Blue & White Club was not to fund the budget gap for the school and the full 32 sports, most of which have individual booster clubs that raise funds in different ways,” said Kevin Price who is the Club’s executive board president. “But we have had to pivot now because of the budget gap issues and cuts for clubs and freshmen sports.

“We need to help support the access to freshmen sports for our incoming ninth-graders because athletics are so important in a young person’s overall high school experience.

“The initial goal to raise $176,000 is a minimum because the budget cuts also affect so many other areas including for umpires, referees, transportation, which are items that impact every sport.

“Every part of the Board of Education budget had cuts and no individual sport can fully withstand what’s happened. We want to fund with equity for all sports while looking to hopefully attract businesses and individual donors, including alumni and families and friends of Mountie sports.

“Our mission statement is to bring back Mountie Pride. If there wasn’t a budget gap we would still be doing this.

“Now we want to help make improvements on the periphery while also helping our coaches with what they may need, whether it’s for uniforms, strength and conditioning, a new landing pad for track, or whatever we can try and to to help all the different teams at our high school.

“It is decision time. I have friends who grew up in town and now raise their kids here, and in addition to making an effort to bring back Mountie pride, we want to see our Montclair kids stay in town and not go to private schools.

"We certainly don’t want to see families move because we don’t have the opportunity of freshmen sports which are vitally important!”

While anger could be a natural reaction with what has occurred in terms of the immense budget deficit and the aftermath with long-winded meetings while discussing cuts across the board - including with high school freshmen sports - there are other feelings also being expressed.

“It has made me feel sad, while at the same time inspiring us to be part of the Blue & White Club’s efforts to step into action now while looking to save freshmen sports and do so much more for all sports and for our Mountie Pride,” said Quiros. “We moved here for the public schools we have, and I’m a huge public-school advocate.

“Looking at my own life I feel that sports helped save me, and I played soccer at Skidmore College, an experience I value so much to this day which helped me develop so much as a person.

“This town has an opportunity to come together and help do something very important for our young student-athletes coming up through our high school now, and in promoting the rich spirit of this great community!”

The Blue & White Club plans to continue to be active throughout the upcoming months, including on Thursday night (April 16) in the LGI Room at the high school, looking to raise awareness and support for all Mountie athletics, including the now threatened existence of freshmen sports.

Belford, a former baseball coach at the high school and college levels, is thankful to have the Blue & White Club on hand for what is going to be a massive effort moving forward regardless of any thoughts of remorse or resentment about what has occurred budgetary-wise in the past few years which has led to this point.

“I used to tell my players at Elizabeth, ‘Tomorrow always comes,’” said the Mountie AD. “And, if there is an answer to dealing with what we now face, we all have to work together to figure it out.”