For 19 years, Norm Schoenig has served as the baseball coach at Montclair State. Through the years, the biography that you are reading here has been written in many different ways. They’ve told you about his no-nonsense, attention-to-every-detail approach to the game, his love of the nickname “Moose” and even how one season he was able to turn the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional into the first “All-Wooden Bat” tournament. But after 19 years of pacing the dugouts in Montclair, there are no more stories to tell. So instead, Norm Schoenig’s career will be told in the simplest of forms. As one famous television detective used to say, “Just the facts.” The fact is that Norm Schoenig has been the finest coach in the history of the Montclair State baseball program and that’s a pretty bold statement when you consider that legendary names such as Bill Dioguardi, Clary Anderson, Fred Hill and Kevin Cooney once sat in the same seat Schoenig occupies now.
But the facts support that statement. In his 19 seasons, Norm Schoenig has won more contests than any coach in Montclair State Athletic history, let alone the baseball program. On the baseball diamond, Schoenig has won 559 games, reaching the 500-win plateau in 2004 as his Red Hawk squad defeated Eastern Connecticut, 4-3. His resume also includes two NCAA Division IIII National Championships, five New Jersey Athletic Conference titles, seven NCAA Regional championships, seven appearances in the Division III World Series, and a national runner-up finish in 1998. Fifteen times he has taken his teams to the NCAA Playoffs, including last season when his team made one of the more improbable runs to the World Series by winning six games over a four-day span to capture the regional championship. Schoenig was named the Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association and New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association Division II/III Co-Coach of the Year.
As a player for Anderson‘s Montclair State teams during the early 1970s and later as an assistant under Hill, Schoenig knows plenty about the rich tradition of MSU Baseball. In fact, if you look around his office, you will see the plaques, trophies and pictures of Montclair’s past and present. When he returned to Montclair State in 1988 as the 10th head coach in the history of the program, Schoenig faced an uphill battle. Inheriting a team that had just won the NCAA title, it took Schoenig just three seasons to return to the World Series and by his sixth season, “Moose” delivered the Red Hawks their second baseball national championship when his band of players topped Wisconsin Oshkosh, 3-1, to win the 1993 crown. Five years later, he nearly pulled off another championship, but instead had to settle for second place.
Then in 2000, Schoenig guided his team to the greatest season Montclair State has ever seen in the 71-year history of the program. MSU won an unprecedented 42 of 50 games (42-7-1), setting the school record for victories while posting an amazing 17-1 mark in the highly competitive NJAC. His team would go on to capture the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional title and earn a berth to the Division III World Series. At the World Series, MSU would lose its first game; but taking his “one-game at a time” attitude, Schoenig’s squad rebounded with five straight wins, culminating with a 6-2 victory over St. Thomas (MN) to give the Red Hawks their third national championship.
The following year, Montclair came very close to becoming the first team to repeat as national champions since 1979 as they placed third at the World Series.
Schoenig became the all-time winningest coach in MSU history in 1997 as he surpassed Dioguardi with his 291st victory in 6-3 win against Albright of Pennsylvania. Schoenig accomplished the feat in just 10 seasons, and in his 19 years he has amassed a 559-282-10 mark (an average of 30 wins per year). He has had seven 30-win seasons and currently ranks 33rd on the Division III coaching leaders in terms of percentage (.683) and his victory total places him 32nd. Those numbers are perhaps more impressive when you look at his NJAC record of 240-79-1, a .750 winning percentage. That includes back-to-back 17-1 records in 2000 and 2001 and a 62-10 ledger from 1998-2001.
During his tenure, 18 of his players have been named All-Americans, with 15 Red Hawks signing professional contracts, including pitcher Jeff Gogal, who was taken in the 12th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft in 2004. But Schoenig’s career reaches far beyond the wins and the losses.
He is a self-described baseball man and has lent his talent and experience to several ventures. Schoenig served on the NCAA Division III Baseball Committee for several years and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Schoenig resides in Pompton Plains, NJ with his wife Pat. The couple has two grown children - Janine, a graduate of Rutgers University, is a Manager of Employee Relations for the National Basketball Association and is married to P. Scott Brown of Chester. Son Brian, 22, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in 2009.
