As a young kid growing up in Montclair, Manj Singh was in the stands at Woodman Field watching local legends like Quintus McDonald play. They were like rock stars to him. In 1994, he became one of them. He was part of a team that won a state title, in a town known both as a state football powerhouse and simply as a “football town” in general. Now he’s back as head football coach, and he’s on a mission: to bring back the feeling.
Singh, a lifelong Montclair resident, was hired in February of 2026 and immediately got to work. Within a week, players were back in the weight room.
“When I got the job, Quintus McDonald called me and said, ‘You’re not the head coach, you’re a CEO,’” Singh told The Montclair Pod. “I didn’t really know what he meant until I got here.”
The Road Back to Montclair
Singh’s coaching career started in an unlikely place: Nishuane Park.
Raised by a single mother, Singh said his brother got him into coaching – and he remembers that early on, a kid walked up to him, grabbed his leg, and called him “Coach.” Singh said he kind of resisted for a second but then had a realization. He quickly after equated, “the word ‘coach’ to ‘dad’,” Singh said. “And I said, I’m not gonna let this kid go.”
That moment led to a 25-year coaching career through some of New Jersey’s toughest football programs. Singh coached in the Montclair Cobras youth league, helped launch the Pop Warner Bulldogs, and later returned to the Cobras, where he won three straight championships. Along the way, he teamed up with longtime assistant Chris Ferraro, another Montclair native who he met on the Cobras in the late 1980s, and has now coached with him for several years.
Together, they helped revive struggling programs at Verona High School and High Schools. At Glen Ridge, they ended a decades-long playoff drought.
Now the friends are back where it all started.
“It’s like another local duo coming in here,” Singh said, referencing legendary Montclair coaches Clary Anderson and Butch Fortunato, another coaching duo that grew up together in Montclair.
What Changes This Fall
Since arriving earlier this year, Singh has been moving fast.
The team now trains in the weight room three mornings a week before school. More than 35 colleges have already visited to scout players. Singh checks grades regularly and asks players about their personal goals before talking about team goals.
He is also trying to fix what he sees as a deeper structural issue: the lack of a true football pipeline in Montclair.
To help close that gap, Singh launched the Junior Mounties program for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders with backing from the Board of Education.
Meanwhile, community fundraising efforts helped preserve freshman football after district budget cuts threatened the program. The Montclair Athletics Blue and White Club has nearly $200,000 to preserve high school athletics this year and in future years, given their funding goal of $350,000. The Football Team held a separate fundraiser recently at Just Jake’s… just for the football program…and that alone brought in more than $45,000.
A video montage featuring historic Mounties footage from the 1980s and ’90s helped spark even more donations.
“When people saw the video, they just started giving more,” Singh said. “They saw what Montclair football was about.”
“Restoring the Feeling”
That phrase has become the team’s unofficial slogan this season.
For Singh, it means reconnecting players and alumni with the program’s history and identity.
Players are now getting history lessons tied to their jersey numbers. “imagine you’re wearing somebody’s number, like 42,” Singh said, “Whoever had that on had to understand they wore Quintus McDonald’s number. And there’s people who wore that before that. If you weren’t 17, you wore Aubrey Lewis’s number. Like you have to know who wore these numbers.”
He is also trying to transform the atmosphere at Woodman Field.
This fall, alumni will have a dedicated sideline section with food, music, drinks, and field-level viewing access. Singh said the idea came from programs like Don Bosco Preparatory High School and Saint Joseph Regional High School, where alumni stay deeply connected to the team.
“You’ve got the alumni on one side, the student section on the other,” Singh said. “We just created a home-field advantage again.”
For Singh, the mission feels personal.
His family roots are here. He is the Director of Flag Football at Centercourt Montclair. He sells real estate locally. He remembers where Murph’s Sports Shop and Fred’s Candy Shop used to stand. He talks about Montclair like someone who has lived every version of it.
And yes, he also came prepared with a local breakfast recommendation for the Pod hosts: Ray’s Luncheonette on Walnut Street. Order the breakfast sandwich, gravy fries or with cheese (if you’re really feeling decadent).
“Everything I do is Montclair,” Singh said. “We’re not trying to rewrite history. We’re restoring the feeling.”
This post was updated 5.28.2026.
Photo Credit: Manj Singh
