Belleville resident and eighth-year head coach Anthony Rea leads young, promising Montclair Kimberley Academy football team this season

BELLEVILLE, NJ — Belleville resident Anthony Rea recently completed his eighth season as the head football coach at Montclair Kimberley Academy, guiding a very young Cougars squad to a highly-competitive 4-6 record.

Rea (39-39 record), who had previously been an assistant coach at MKA and William Paterson University, took over the reins of the Cougar gridiron program in 2014 for the first of three straight outstanding seasons with records of 6-4, 10-1 and 7-3 through 2016.

MKA had to rebuild and then reload from 2017-2019 before finishing with a respectable 4-3 campaign during the COVID-truncated 2020 season.

This fall the Cougars were able to play nine games on the field while forfeiting vs. Long Island Lutheran on Sept. 24 due to not having a sufficient number of healthy players. However, Rea rallied the troops for a strong second half of the season which included a 3-3 mark over the final six games highlighted by a 26-12 victory over Palisades Park in a NJSIAA regional crossover contest.    

The 35-year-old Rea is a 2004 graduate of Summit High School where he was a standout wide receiver and defensive back. He then went on to play defensive back at Gettysburg (Pa.) College. 

Photo Courtesy of Gene Nann

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