NUTLEY, NJ — For almost two decades, the Nutley High School baseball team program has been one of the best in Essex County under the guidance of Bob Harbison.
A 1984 NHS graduate, Harbison has guided NHS teams on great runs in the county and state tournaments.
After 18 seasons, not counting 2020 when COVID canceled the season, Harbison has decided to step down as the head coach.
Harbison, who starred in football, basketball and baseball at NHS, took over as the Raiders baseball head coach in 2004. His first season was arguably his best. Nutley won both the Greater Newark Tournament title and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s North Jersey, Section 1, Group 3 state tournament title before finishing with a 27-5 record. The GNT has been considered the county tournament since 1973. The first year of the GNT was in 1933.
In all, Harbison recorded 288 career victories and had a .596 winning percentage. With Harbinson at the helm, Nutley posted 15 non-losing seasons while facing tough competition each year.
The Raiders reached the GNT final five more times, in 2005, 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2018, unfortunately losing in each of them. Nutley faced perennial powerhouse Seton Hall Prep in five straight GNT finals, from 2001-05.
Harbison will remain as the NHS head boys basketball coach, a position he has had longer than his time as the Raiders head baseball coach. Harbison has been the head boys basketball coach since the 1999-2000 season.
Nutley finished as state sectional semifinalists in 2005, 2006, 2009, 2014, 2016 and 2018. The team reached the North 2, Group 3 state sectional final in 2019, losing to West Morris, 2-1, in nine innings to finish with a 22-7 record.
This past spring, Nutley finished with a 14-11 record, losing at top-seeded and fellow Super Essex Conference–American Division foe Milburn, 1-0, in the North 2, Group 3 state sectional quarterfinals on a walkoff home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to end the Raiders’ season.
Harbison has also stepped down as a NHS assistant football coach after being in that role for the past several years. His son, Matthew Harbison, was a senior starting quarterback for the Raiders this past season. Matthew Harbison earned first team honors in the Super Football Conference–American Red Division and represented NHS as the SFC’s Steve DiGregorio Young Man of the Year award nominee. DiGregorio, a 1979 NHS graduate, was a longtime NHS football head coach who died last October after a courageous two-year battle with cancer. DiGregorio coached the Raiders for 12 seasons in two stints, with his final season coming in 2020, when the team went a perfect 6-0 in the COVID-shortened year.
File Photos.
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