Photo Credit: Manj Singh
Thirty years ago, Manj Singh was in the stands at Woodman Field watching players like Quintus McDonald and Aubrey Lewis like they were rock stars. In 1994, he was on the field winning a state title alongside them. Now, Montclair High School football is his to rebuild as the new Montclair Mounties head football coach.
Singh, a lifelong Montclair resident, was hired on February 25, 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 dragged him to the park one day when his nephew was little. A kid walked up, grabbed his leg, and called him “Coach.” Singh laughed it off at first. But 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 has coached beside him since the late 1980s.
Together, they helped revive struggling programs at Bloomfield High School and Glen Ridge High School. At Bloomfield, they inherited a one-win team and turned it into an 11-win program. 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.
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 Blue and White Athletics Club raised tens of thousands of dollars through local fundraisers, including a packed night at Just Jakes 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. If you wear No. 42, Singh says, you should know it belonged to Quintus McDonald. No. 17 belonged to Aubrey Lewis.
“You have to know who wore these numbers,” Singh said.
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 with cheese on the side.
“Everything I do is Montclair,” Singh said. “We’re not trying to rewrite history. We’re restoring the feeling.”
