In the rich tradition of Montclair State Athletics, there have been many great and successful coaches that have roamed the sidelines of their respective sports and sitting atop that list is Anita Kubicka.
Entering her 33rd season at the Red Hawk helm in 2023, Kubicka has fashioned quite a coaching resume – 949 victories, a .709winning percentage – both which rank in the Top 10 among active coaches in Division III.
Sixteen times under her Kubicka's watch, Montclair State has won 30-plus games, including 12 of the last 20 campaigns, and she has led the Red Hawks to 14 NCAA Tournaments overall. In those 14 appearances are five trips to the national championship tournament where in 1997 Montclair finished as the runner-up in addition to third-place finishes in 1992 and 2012. Montclair State has also won seven ECAC championships in that time and she has earned several NJAC and Regional Coach of the Year honors.
In December 2014, the long-time coach was bestowed the highest honor a coach can receive as she was elected to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Hall of Fame. Four months later Kubicka added another milestone to her already impressive career with her 800th victory against Centenary College becoming just the sixth coach in NCAA Division III history to record that reach that mark.
From 2011 through 2014, few teams enjoyed the success that Kubicka’s teams achieved. During that span the Red Hawks have captured 82 percent of their games posting a 159-34 record that includes three straight 40-win campaigns. Montclair won the NJAC championship in 2013 and reached the NCAA Division III Softball Championship in 2012, 2013 and 2014 becoming the first Montclair State program to reach the national finals three straight years since baseball had a run of five consecutive World Series appearances in the 1980s. Montclair set the single-season mark for wins twice (44 in 2012 and 46 in 2013) and were ranked in the Top 10 of NFCA national poll, including several weeks at No. 1 during the 2013 campaign.
During the 2007 and 2008 seasons, no team in the New Jersey Athletic Conference was better than Kubicka’s Red Hawks which registered an impressive 34-2 record during that time. In 2008 MSU put together its best conference season in program history. Montclair did not lose a single conference game during the regular season posting an 18-0 mark making just the second NJAC squad in league annals to accomplish that feat. In addition to its second straight regular-season crown, Montclair also captured the NJAC Tournament winning twice on the final day to earn its first conference championship since 1997 and its third overall.
Montclair State completed 2008 with a 43-6 record, setting the school record for victories at the time and Kubicka and her staff were rewarded with Coaching Staff of the Year honors from both the NJAC and the NFCA. Kubicka was also honored by the New Jersey Sportswriters Association in January of 2009.
Kubicka came to Montclair State in 1991 and a year later she had the Red Hawks in the NCAA Division III Softball Championship as Montclair made a “Cinderella” run to a third-place showing. Earning the final berth into the 1992 Regional Tournament, lost its first game, but went on to win its next four including three in one day to earn a trip to Pella, Iowa. Four years later, MSU returned to the national final and reached the championship game this time in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This time, the Red Hawks advanced to the championship round came within a run of winning the national championship before falling to Simpson College, 2-1.
Kubicka became the all-time winningest coach during the 1997 season as she surpassed Willie Rucker for the top spot with her 210th victory, a 3-2 triumph against Rowan in the NCAA Regional Tournament. She joined recently retired baseball coach Norm Schoenig and basketball coach Ollie Gelston as the only Montclair State coaches to win 300 contests in 2000 and collected her 500th victory in April 2006 as MSU topped Richard Stockton, 4-3. Her 600th victory came four years later in 2010 and she surpassed the 700-win mark in 2012 when Montclair blanked Ramapo 5-0 in the opening round of the NJAC Softball Championship.
But Kubicka’s legacy in Montclair State softball history goes beyond the records and accolades on the field.
She played a major role in the construction of the MSU Softball that gave her team a first-class facility that matched it success on the field. The stadium opened in 2004 to raved reviews and is one of the premier softball-only complexes in the East Region. The stadium served as the home to the NY/NJ Juggernaut of the National Pro Fastpitch in 2004 and in May 2009 was the site for the NCAA Division III Softball Championship. It marked the first time that Montclair hosted a national championship tournament and it was the first appearance in the East by the tournament in 20 years.
Among the list of 57 players to be named All-American at MSU, Kubicka had coached 39 of them – 19 First-Team selections, including 1992 NCAA Division III Player of the Year Lois Fyfe. Kubicka’s teams have also excelled in the classroom raking among the top academic athletic teams at Montclair State and place several players each year on the NJAC’s All-Academic Team. In 2008, Jackie Ferranti became the first female and the fifth student-athlete in school history to be named to the Capital One Academic All-America Team with pitcher Alex Hill earning three straight honors from 2012-14 including the first female to selected to the First Team in 2013.
Kubicka, a 1984 graduate of Trenton State, is well acquainted with winning traditions. During her career, she played on the Lions’ 1983 National Championship squad, the first for the school after having finished runner-up in both its 1982 and 1984 NCAA Division III Softball Championship campaigns. Following her graduation from Trenton State, the first team All-American earned her Master’s in Science in Sports Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, while serving as an assistant softball coach. During those three years, UMass earned two Atlantic 10 Championships and in 1986 garnered a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
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Kubicka Through the Years
