PV alum to step down as Pascack Hills boys basketball coach
After seven seasons at the helm, Pascack Hills boys basketball coach Kevin Kirkby is stepping down.
Kirkby’s resignation is on the agenda for Monday night’s Board of Education meeting at the Pascack Hills auditorium.
Kirkby, a 1998 Pascack Valley graduate and former Division 1 baseball player at St. Joseph’s University, will remain in his other positions as junior varsity volleyball coach and varsity baseball coach at Hills. He is a math teacher there, and he taught at PV before being moved to Hills when he accepted the boys basketball coaching position.
“There really are two major reasons for the decision, and they kind of go hand-in-hand,” he said. “The first is the fact that I have a 5-year old son who I never get to see during the season. The second is that I also coach JV volleyball as well as varsity baseball and coaching all three, and being a head coach in two was just getting to be too much. It was starting to take a toll on my health as my blood pressure and stress levels were through the roof, mostly because of basketball.”
In his time as the basketball coach at Hills, Kirkby guided the Cowboys to a 161-40 record, and the team won four straight North 1, Group 2 sectional titles from 2011 to 2014.
His 2010-11 team won 27 games, the most in school history.
Despite all of the program’s successes, Kirkby said he had been mulling the decision since the start of this season.
“Going into this season I kind of had an idea that it would be the last season but I knew for sure soon after the holiday break.”
Before taking the head coaching job at Hills, Kirkby spent time as an assistant basketball coach at PV, Northern Highlands and Moorestown.
Jake Aferiat graduated in 2017.