Perth Amboy hires Wall alum, ’25 Carteret assistant Evan Baubles to rejuvenate football program

The Perth Amboy Board of Education has approved a new coach for the Panthers’ football program, hiring Evan Baubles with an eye toward elevating the struggling program over the next few years.

Baubles – who was approved at Thursday afternoon’s meeting – is a guidance counselor at South Amboy High School for juniors and seniors, and spent the past year as an assistant at Carteret under Kevin Freeman. He met Freeman while the two were at Lakewood, where Baubles spent nearly two decades, before a year at Hightstown and another with the Ramblers.

The 42-year-old Baubles is a graduate of Wall Township High School, and was a three-sport athlete there, playing football, basketball and baseball, the last of which may have been his best sport. He was drafted out of high school, but attended Santa Fe Community college to avoid the requirement that D1 baseball players spend three years in school before being drafted again; Santa Fe allowed him to be eligible after one year if he wished.

But, he had arm trouble almost immediately and was unable to play his freshman year. After getting it taken care of, the same problems came back his sophomore year, effectively ending his career.

Then, in June of 2006, he was involved in a horrific car crash on I-95 in Virginia, when a vehicle he was riding in struck construction equipment on the side of the road. The crash took the life of his father, Peter, who was driving, and his younger brother, Colin. He suffered serious injuries in the crash, but eventually made a full recovery.

Baubles will take over a Perth Amboy program that was 10-45 in in six seasons under William Clark, never winning more than three games in a season; they were 3-7 in 2021.

Click below to hear new Perth Amboy football coach Evan Baubles talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

Freeman glowingly praised Baubles – the two first met at Lakewood nearly 15 years ago – when reached this week by Central Jersey Sports Radio.

“He’s had a tireless effort to improve player performance while increasing his overall knowledge of the game,” Freeman said. “He gets the kids to play for him. He wants to make the greatest impact possible on players through this game.”

Freeman says they’ll miss him in Carteret.

“We intertwine our frosh with the varsity for practice. We were down a coach one day and I turn around and he has the entire frosh team doing fundamental drills,” Freeman said. “He is a true old-school football coach who doesn’t let a minute waste when he’s on that field. I’m very excited for him.

While it’s certainly later in the game that most districts will hire their head coaches, typically done in January or February, Freeman says Baubles will “put them in a good position to compete.”