Trophies Trophy News

For years, some of the best pieces of Montclair High School’s glorious athletic history have been forgotten, strewn about an obscure, dank room with all the charm of a warehouse. It’s called “The Pit,” and it is the crypt where the ghosts of Montclair’s championship past survive.

Located underneath the auditorium stage at the high school, The Pit occasionally sees visitors. But few know or seem to care about the gold mine behind a locked cage door. The Pit is at the center of a reclamation project headed by a group of alumni volunteers and donors, which aims to revitalize some of Montclair High’s proud sports history.

Saturday morning, their hard work will come to fruition in a dedication ceremony for brand-new trophy cases at the Furlong Field House, in conjunction with the MHS Class of 1961′s reunion weekend and Montclair’s 1 p.m. football game against Belleville at Woodman Field. On display at the Field House – itself refurbished several years ago – will be roughly 100 restored trophies pulled from The Pit. The project isn’t finished yet. Money is always an issue, but in The Pit itself, there appear to be hundreds more trophies lying around; some are destroyed beyond repair, others are in fair to good condition. But the history of MHS athletics is in a better state than it was six years and thousands of dollars ago.

For a town and a school steeped in athletic lore and tradition – MHS is perhaps the most decorated public-school football program in New Jersey, and coaches Gil Gibbs and Homer Robinson put lacrosse on the map here – it seems impossible that so much history could be lost. But that was the situation in late 2005, when Bill Kennedy (class of 1958) returned to his alma mater to watch his son coach the Bloomfield junior varsity basketball team.

Kennedy noticed that few of the trophies in the gym lobby, nor the banners on the gym walls predated the 1980s. Curious as to the location of older trophies – especially those from his time at MHS – Kennedy asked around and learned about The Pit. That was the founding moment for the group that became known as “The Pit Crew,” a group of six alumni who dedicated their efforts to saving as many relics and as much history as possible. They include Kennedy, Vincent Valenti, Barbara Fortunato Hurley, Peggy “Grange” Rutan Mahne-Habermann, Tony Naturale and Sandy Kennedy.