Montville's New Athletic Director Gears Up For Fall Sports Season

Being the supervisor of health, physical education and school nurses at Montville Township High School is not an easy job for Paul Pignatello.

"There is definitely a lot of work involved," he said.

Starting when school opens next month, Pignatello's job will get even more involved.

Because of the retirement in June of athletics director Steve Naccara and state-mandated budget cuts, Pignatello will take on additional duties as the school's athletic director.

Pignatello, who has been at MTHS since January 2001, has been serving as the school's athletic director since July. He won't take on the title officially, however, until after the township's board of education approves his appointment, likely at the September 2 public meeting.

Athletics is nothing new to Pignatello. He previously was athletic director at Holmdel and Clifton high schools before coming to Montville.

"There is a lot more responsibility now than there was then," said Pignatello. "There will be a learning curve. Procedures are different and I still am going to need to know the basics."

Those basics include making sure all sports venues are maintained and in playing condition, picking and paying game officials and making sure all events are played in an orderly and sportsmanlike manner.

"Sportsmanship is the basis of high school athletics," Pignatello said. "It's what builds character. That comes first. Winning and success are side effects of sportsmanship."

Pignatello will oversee a department that competes in 23 sports, ranging from football in the fall to boys tennis in the spring.

"We have some good competitive teams," he said. "I think we are going to be very competitive in the fall. Our boys soccer team enjoyed a good season last year. They won the league (North Jersey Athletic Conference-National), made it to sectionals and reached the Morris County Tournament final.

"Our football team finished at .500 last year, but it has a chance to improve," Pignatello said.

About the only concern Pignatello has is the continuing changes to the NJAC, a league formed last year when old traditional conferences, including the Iron Hills Conference in which Montville once competed, where broken up.

The new alignment pits schools of relatively the same size against one another. In many of the older conferences, larger schools played smaller schools on a regular basis, many times much to the disadvantage of the smaller school.

It also forced teams to travel long distances in order to play one another.

"We have a lot of long trips, to places like Sparta, Vernon and High Point,"

Pignatello said, pointing out that with budget cuts, longer road trips could be a problem, especially for smaller schools.

"Look at the geography. Montville is on the outskirts of Morris County," Pignatello said.

Still, Pignatello is excited about the upcoming season.

"It's going to be a good one," he said.