The Verona Board of Education voted on Tuesday, December 12, to hire Manj Singh, a Montclair native who played on Montclair High School’s 1994 state championship football team, as Verona High School’s head football coach for the 2024 season.
Singh, who played wide receiver and tight end for the Mounties, began his coaching career at Don Bosco Prep, where he was the freshman defensive coordinator from 2016 to 2018. He was the varsity and JV coach at Saint Joseph Regional High School from 2018 to 2020 and then the head coach in Glen Ridge in 2021 and 2022. The Ridgers won their first playoff game in 41 years in 2022.
At Verona, Singh succeeds Kevin Batty, who had been the VHS head football coach since 2018. Batty announced in November that he would not be returning to the team next season. Verona had a 2-8 record this year, after finishing 3-8 in 2022 and 4-5 in 2021. But the team was 5-2 in 2020, 12-0 in 2019 and 7-3 in 2018, when it went all the way to the semifinals of the state playoffs. All Verona coaches are hired on a season-by-season basis for their sports.
“Verona is a powerhouse program and, being from Montclair, growing up all you heard was Montclair, Cedar Grove and Verona in our area,” Singh said last night about why he applied for the Verona position. “Coaching against Verona for the past two seasons, I felt the energy in that program, and when the opportunity came, I said, ‘why not give it a shot?’ ”
“Now it’s time to put Verona back where we belong,” added Singh, who works as a realtor for Compass Real Estate in Montclair and is also the director for flag football at Centercourt Montclair.
The BOE said Tuesday night that six people had applied for the head coach position and that two were interviewed by a group that included Athletic Director Laura Palmerezzi, Vice Principal Bob Merkler, Principal Joshua Cogdill, Athletic Trainer Jason Calo, basketball Coach Eric McElroy and Director of School Counseling Marisa Ackermann. Superintendent Diane DiGiuseppe said the choice of Singh had been unanimous.
About a dozen VHS football players attended Tuesday’s meeting and one, Marco Contorno, read a statement on their behalf expressing support for Brian Wenzel, a VHS teacher who has been the assistant varsity coach under Batty. He said that Wenzel has had an impact on the football team on the field and in the classroom, and praised him for holding lunch-time player gatherings. Wenzel has not yet returned an email from MyVeronaNJ asking whether he applied for the head coach position or was interviewed.
