Is New Jersey ready for another game-changer? Dave Boff and a small charter school down the Jersey Shore may be the one to do it

It’s been over a decade since Kevin Boyle took his ball and went down to the Sunshine State to coach. The move stunned the Jersey basketball world, as he left the powerhouse St. Patrick program in Elizabeth to take the reins at the Montverde Academy, where he quickly coached his way to his first-ever unbeaten season, and a share of two national championships.

It was a seismic shift. In the years that followed, St. Pat’s became The Patrick School, no longer affiliated with the Diocese of Newark, and moved to Hillside, while the other big North Jersey powerhouse, St. Anthony in Jersey City, led seemingly forever by Bob Hurley, Sr., closed in 2017.

Dave Boff coached for Hurley, and after spending his first three seasons as coach at Governor Livingston, took over at Roselle Catholic, bringing that program to new heights, attracting major Division 1 talent to the Union County school, and winning four Tournament of Champions titles. Boyle (with five) and Hurley (with a dozen) are the only coaches to win more.

But last year, Boff capped off his 15th season with the Lions by announcing he was leaving to take on a new challenge and opportunity, as administrator and head boys’ basketball coach at College Acheive Public Charter School in Neptune City.

Sure, it may be closer to his home in Tinton Falls, as NJ.com reported when the news broke in late April, but it’s likely there’s way more to the story.

College Achieve is a small operation, at least for now. But Boff will get a chance to build a program from the ground up. He’s already had players follow him, and others transfer in from various other schools, including St. Thomas Aquinas in the GMC.

But here’s the main difference. College Achieve Charter is a considered a “public school.” Yet, unlike most public schools, which can only draw students from their geographical boundaries, unless they’re a “choice” school, they can pull from all over the place.

And, as the NJSIAA decreed in a major overhaul of transfer rules last year, they can also recruit, as long as it’s before ninth grade.

Unlike football, which requires a massive amount of players, and has seen many non-public Catholic schools close in recent years, new charters are popping up all the time. In fact, in Central Jersey Group 1 alone, there are nine charter schools, two vocational-technical schools – Perth Amboy Magnet and Somerset Tech – and 13 true, traditional public schools.

And if they don’t realize it now, they will come the state tournament in February. Last year’s CJ1 title winner was Eagle Academy of Newark, which had an enrollment of about 250 students as of a few years ago, according to national education statistics. The top seed, they finished 25-6, and beat Shore (21-6) by four in the finals, but lost in the Group 1 semis to Woodbury.

The win over Shore being a close game, and with Eagle Academy being one of just two charters that qualified in that section, it didn’t really grab major headlines.

But if you think they, or anyone else, has a chance against Boff and College Achieve, you might also think you have a chance at winning Powerball, or dating and breaking up with Taylor Swift and she won’t write a song about you.

Wrong on both accounts. (We’ll see how well this stretch of story ages in a couple of months.)

And this may be where the game-changer comes in: Boff will essentially do what he did at Roselle Catholic, attracting the best talent from across New Jersey, just like many other non-publics over the years.

But unlike at Roselle Catholic, or Hurley at St. Anthony’s, or Boyle at St. Pat’s, he’ll be competing against traditional public schools come playoff time.

Central Jersey Group 1 also includes several small schools in the CJSR coverage area for basketball. They include Dunellen, Highland Park, Manville, Somerset Tech, and South Amboy. Do you think any of them have a hope and a prayer against College Achieve?

No. Not in this world, and not in the next.

So it may be time for that next seismic shift in high school basketball in New Jersey.

The number of charters has exploded in recent years. They’re not going away; there will only be more and more of them in the years ahead.

And that means the NJSIAA may have to rethink how it classifies schools. As charters and other non-publics increase their attention and dedication to athletics, it’s becoming an unlevel playing field for the public schools in the same sections.

It would be like putting Bergen Catholic football into Central Jersey Group 5. Or just taking Boff’s Roselle Catholic team and putting it in Central Jersey Group 1.

The dominance of non-publics is one of the reasons the NJSIAA, tired of seeing the same teams in it and winning it every year, got rid of the Tournament of Champions in all sports that had it – much to the chagrin of many high school basketball fans in New Jersey, along with a significant number of players and coaches.

(Lacrosse coaches got so fed up with the decision, they hosted their own, independent TOC last year, with the NJSIAA’s blessing, once the playoffs were done.)

In the same vein, the NJSIAA may need to lump the charters, academies, and other similar schools, in with the non-publics. Maybe the classification needs a name-change to make it happen, but it’s an idea that merits serious consideration.

Don’t get us wrong: we’re not criticizing anyone. Not Boff, not College Achieve, not the NJSIAA. Or any other non-public school that can draw kids from other towns.

But this is like picking up Roselle Catholic, moving it down the Jersey Shore, and putting them in a public school section. No one has ever done it before. But if it works, we’ll see much more of it.

So when College Achieve – which can legally recruit through eighth grade and bring in freshmen from neighboring towns – blows out a public schools that can’t bring in kids from other towns in the Central Jersey Group 1 by 50 in the finals don’t tell us we didn’t warn you.

We’re telling you now.

The game will change. Will the NJSIAA keep pace?