Rutgers-Camden Athletics

Assistant Coach   Marc Balara (5th season)
High School:                Father Judge
College:                        St. Joseph’s University (1984)
Major:                           Food Marketing
 
After serving two seasons as a volunteer assistant coach with the Rutgers-Camden women’s basketball program, Marc Balara became the Scarlet Raptors’ head assistant coach for the 2015-16 scholastic year. He enters his fifth year with the program this season.
 
Balara has been a big part of the program’s resurgence during the past three seasons. Prior to working with Head Coach Annette Reiter at Rutgers-Camden, Balara compiled nine years of coaching experience on the AAU circuit. Most recently, he coached with the Comets of South Jersey in 2013, leading them to a fourth-place finish at Nationals. He also coached with the Tri-State Tarheels for seven years, taking two teams to Nationals. He coached with Reiter with both the Comets and the Tarheels.
 
Balara also served as the Girls’ Basketball Commissioner for the Marlton Rec Council from 2003-2006.
 
Balara was a contributing author to “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inside Basketball, 101 Great Hoop Stories from Players, Coaches and Fans” written by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and the NBA’s Pat Williams. The book, published in 2009, includes Balara’s contribution “The Coach from Iona.”
 
Balara earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Food Marketing from St. Joseph’s University in 1984 and added an MBA in Marketing from St. Joseph’s in 1989.
 
A native of the Northeast section of Philadelphia, Balara resides in Ventnor, New Jersey, with his wife Donna and three children, Victoria (a 2013 Rutgers graduate), Alexandra and Duncan. Alexandra, a 2015 Elmira College graduate, was a Speech Pathology major who played for the Lady Soaring Eagles’ basketball program and served as an assistant coach at Rutgers-Camden during the 2015-16 season. Duncan, a 2015 Cherokee High School graduate who was a member of the Chiefs’ baseball team, is now playing for Neumann University.