Sport: Basketball
Born: 1963
Town, Clark, New Jersey
Kevin Boyle was born in Clark, NJ in 1963. A smart and aggressive pure shooter, Kevin enrolled at Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark and starred for three seasons as a scoring guard for coach Steve Petruzzelli, who took over the Crusaders varsity in Kevin’s sophomore year. Kevin poured in 1,000 points a season at ALJ and was second-team all-state as a senior. He went on to play basketball for Seton Hall (Petruzzelli’s alma mater) and then St. Peter’s College in Jersey City.
Pro ball was not a viable next step for Kevin, but coaching was. He had a tremendous feel for the tempo of a game and understood how subtle, incremental adjustments could turn an average player into a very good one. That being said, there was nothing subtle about Kevin.
Kevin’s first coaching job was a middle-school gig at St. Joseph’s in Roselle before landing the varsity basketball position at St. Patrick’s High School Academy in Elizabeth at the age of 25. He coached the Celtics for more than two decades and gained a reputation for developing college-ready players, sending roughly three-quarters of his boys to Division-1 schools. His high-energy style, non-stop banter and hands-on teaching approach got buy-in from players on his philosophy that every play, every pass and every minute of practice was an opportunity to improve in some way.
Kevin led St. Patrick’s to five New Jersey Tournament of Champions titles, often vying with Bob Hurley’s St. Anthony’s squad for supremacy. Among the players he developed at St. Patrick were Kyrie Irving, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Al Harrington, Shaheen Holloway. In 2011, after the fifth title, Kevin left St. Patrick for the head job at Monteverde Academy in Orlando, a prep school known for producing elite-level college basketball players. St. Patrick was suffering from financial woes and would close in 2012.
That first season, Kevin got to work with Joel Embiid, a raw seven-footer who was discovered by former Eagle Luc Mbah a Moute at one of the basketball camps he held in his native Cameroon. Monteverde already had two more advanced big men, Dakari Johnson and Landry Nkono, so he moved Embiid down to the JV in order to give the 17-year-old more playing time. When the varsity kids began making fun of Embiid, Kevin suggested they back off because one day they’d probably be asking him for a loan.
Kevin’s recruiting efforts at Monteverde were made easier by the release of the HBO documentary entitled Prayer of a Perfect Season. It chronicled his final year at St. Patrick’s and captured the mix of energy and expertise he brought to high school coaching. After seeing the doc, D’Angelo Russell’s father enrolled his son in Monteverde and gave Kevin his blessing to do whatever it took to make D’Angelo a star. RJ Barrett’s father, a college star back in the day, had a similar reaction when he and his sone visited the school.
Barrett actually started out on Monteverde’s second-tier team, which was being coached by Kevin’s son, Kevin Jr. (Kevin’s wife, Kelly, runs his basketball camps in New Jersey) who had played for him in Elizabeth. Barrett moved to the varsity as soon as he showed he was ready. His skill was obvious; what Kevin helped to develop were RJ’s leadership skills, which got him a scholarship to Duke and a first-round pick in the NBA.
Another Monteverde star who went in the first round was Ben Simmons, who led the Eagles to three state titles and a nod as Team of the Decade from USA Today.
In 2019–20, Boyle’s best player was senior Cade Cunningham, who was the first overall pick in in the 2022 draft after a year at Oklahoma State. In 2021–22, Dariq Whitehead had a sensational senior season for Boyle and two years later became yet another first-round NBA pick. In 2022, Kevin notched the 800th victory of his coaching career.