By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
@tortreports on Instagram
If you know Ron Myers, then you know he’s a basketball guy through and through.
But when he’s not on the hardwood with a whistle around his neck and clipboard in his hand, you can now find the Pitman High boys head basketball coach on the football field.
Myers, who started at Kingsway Regional as a special education teacher last fall, is now putting his knowledge of X’s and O’s to the test as the Dragons’ new assistant flag football coach.
“I always had it in the back of my head that if I came here, I wanted to try to get involved in something,” said Myers, who succeeds former assistant Mike Husni, who is now coaching at Hammonton. “I didn’t know what — or if it would be in my first year here that I would do that. A couple months into the school year, (head coach Susan) Massara approached me with the opportunity to do that.
“To be on the ground floor with this sport of flag football with the girls and to help move it forward, and do whatever I can to keep it growing — to be able to be part of that was enticing. It was something new; a new challenge. It’s something different that I haven’t tried, it’s completely out of my comfort zone. I wanted to see if I would be able to do it and thought it was a good opportunity.”
A 1998 Pitman graduate, Myers was a star on the court during his scholastic days. Myers posted more than 1,000 career points and led the Panthers to back-to-back Group 1 state titles in 1997 and 1998 alongside the dynamic brother duo of Joe and Jon Crispin. He did play football throughout his youth and his first two years of high school, but stepped away from the sport to focus on basketball.
Myers, who is a member of the Pitman Athletic Hall of Fame, took over as the boys hoops coach there in 2014 after spending the previous six years as the head coach at GCIT. He led Pitman to the South Jersey Group 1 title in 2024.
Now, Myers is hoping to bring his track record of dedication and success to Woolwich.
“Coming to a new school, you always want to put your best foot forward,” he said. “Coaching is a way you can show some of your strengths, as far as your camaraderie with other coaches and kids. It’s a great way to show you’re a team player.”
Myers teaches a unified gym class with Massara, and it didn’t take long for her to recognize what he could offer a talented program like Kingsway.
“Ron got a job here this year, and he’s my in-class support for my unified physical education class,” Massara said. “He started talking about his involvement with Pitman basketball, and I was still on the lookout for an assistant, and we just got to talking. He’s turning out to be the perfect fit for what I needed.
“If you coach one sport, you can coach multiple sports. I looked up how his teams have done and his reputation is great, so I was really confident in that hire. (It was) a no-brainer.”
Kingsway has been one of the top programs since the West Jersey Football League adopted Flag Football in 2022. Under Massara’s direction, the Dragons captured the West Jersey Football League title in 2024 and made it to the championship game in 2025.
The Dragons have since graduated the majority of the talent from those championship squads and boast a young, but talented, core this spring.
“There are a lot of expectations coming in here being the new guy. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, I’m just trying to keep it moving in the right direction,” Myers explained. “The bad part is that we lost so many kids, but the good thing is that I’m starting fresh with the younger kids. I’m starting fresh as well as them starting fresh. So, it’s not me coming in with kids that are used to doing one thing and trying to do something that they are not used to. I’m getting to grow with the younger kids, too.
“It’s been a really easy transition from that standpoint.”
Myers was previously an assistant for the Pitman baseball program under coach John Hopely for the past seven seasons, but decided it was time to try something new. One premier benefit of leaving the dugout was the extra time he would be able to spend with his children. Baseball can often be a time-consuming game, while flag football is fast-paced, with games rarely going longer than 70 minutes, including halftime.
Pitman also typically has more night games than your average baseball squad with lights at the Alcyon Lake Park field.
“Also with the scheduling, baseball can be late with practice and games. I weighed the options. There was a lot of good and bad as far as leaving Pitman baseball. I was coaching baseball at Pitman for the last seven years. It was hard to leave Hopely and being a part of that program,” Myers said. “My two younger kids are getting involved in youth baseball, so I wanted to be around that more. This was an opportunity to be able to spend more time with them as well. I get done a few hours before I normally would be coaching baseball.”
Myers now is able to juggle coaching the flag team as well as his sons’ leagues. He has three boys, two of whom are 8 and 11 years old. His oldest, Sonny, graduated from Pitman in 2024 and played basketball under his father.
Kingsway, ranked No. 3 in the latest WJFL rankings, is off to a 4-1 start despite graduating more than a dozen seniors. Freshman quarterback Naomi Lines has thrown for nine touchdowns and sophomore receiver Alessia Lentini has a team-high 27 receptions. The Dragons dropped a narrow 12-7 decision to Williamstown on Mar. 25 but bounced back Monday with a 13-0 win over Delsea Regional.
“We’ve been playing pretty well so far. There’s still a lot of room for growth,” Myers said. “A lot of them are playing the sport and getting minutes for the first time. This is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new team. It’s really exciting to be able to grow and see how far we can get from Day One to the end of the year.
“We’ve been doing this for three weeks and there’s already been a lot of growth. I fully expect there to be more as the season goes on.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Kingsway hosts Woodbury on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
