Kearny soccer has been a part of Scott Millar’s life before he was even old enough to kick a soccer ball. Now he’s set to take over as the head coach of a program that has meant so much to him and so many other families in the Kearny area.
After a successful playing career and more than 15 years of coaching within the high school program, was formally approved by the Board of Education in June to be the new boys soccer head coach at Kearny.
Millar, becomes just the third man to host the Kardinals head job in 50 years, following in the footsteps of his father John (1974-2005) and Billy Galka (2006-2023), who Scott Millar worked with for the past 15 seasons, the last six as the top varsity assistant.
“I grew up in the game and I grew up specifically in this environment, so on that level it certainly means a lot,” Scott Millar said. “In terms of high school athletics, I would probably rank it as one of the top 10 jobs in the state, if not the country. I’m definitely fortunate enough to be in this position right now and be the caretaker of the program at the moment.”
Millar said that becoming the head coach at Kearny was not a specific goal for himself, but perhaps no one is better aware of what the job entails. As a child, he remembers seeing practice plans drawn up on the kitchen table and stacks of VHS tapes for scouting opponents.
“It’s not a three or four month a year job (at Kearny), it’s a 24-hour a day, 365 days a year job,” said Millar. “I saw it at 6 years old, I saw it at 10 years old and I saw it when I was a player at 17, the amount of prep work that goes into planning sessions and putting our teams in the best possible chance to be successful. There’s no doubt that Billy continued with that model and the amount of time, energy, effort that we all put into that from Billy down through our freshman coaches.”
Head coach of the freshman team was where Scott Millar, got his start into high school coaching after a playing career that saw him being named a First Team, All-State player before moving on to Virginia Commonwealth University.
In the middle of 2019, Millar was promoted to varsity assistant coach when the prior assistant, Jimmy Hempel, had to step down after being named an assistant principal at Lincoln Middle School.
“The opportunity to step in and coach the freshman team probably got me into education,” Millar, a math teacher at Lincoln Middle School said. “From there, I was happy to support the program in any way I could, whether that was coaching the freshman team, whether that was just coming down and being a fan, being a supporter. I was very happy working with Billy and I tremendously enjoyed our time together.”
During the five decades under John Millar and Galka, Kearny won 11 Group 4 state championships, 23 state sectional titles and countless division titles, while experiencing tremendous consistency and continuity.
With such a history of success, including a trip to the Group 4 state final this past fall, Millar knows that a lot will remain the same.
“There’s no doubt that over the years we’ve all taken quite a bit from the people that come before us and put our own individual spin on it,” said Scott Millar. “Billy did the same when he took over from my father. I’m going to take pieces from both of them and continue with many of the same things that we like to do. We all have very similar mindsets, but at the same time, we’re going to put our own individual spin on it as we go.”
Continuing in that continuity, the entire coaching staff from last year is back. Andrew Gray, who for more than two decades has been the program’s JV coach, moves up to varsity assistant, with John Millar maintaining his role as a volunteer coach with an emphasis on working with the goalkeepers.
Anthony Policano moves from freshman coach to JV coach and Jose Escandon, the 2017 NJ.com State Player of the Year, is the new freshman coach.
Escandon becomes the latest example of a Kearny player becoming a coach. Scott Millar estimates that there’s only two examples in the last 40 years of a coach in the program not being a former player at Kearny.
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)