‘Corona, Coors & Cocktails’ Concert For Sparta Teacher, Coach

SPARTA, NJ — Family and friends have teamed up for a t-shirt fundraiser and Facebook Live concert to benefit Billy Connors, a teacher and coach who lives in Sparta with his family, recovering from a stroke since April.

Organizers for the concert, scheduled on Thursday, June 24 from 7 to 10 p.m., have a goal to recruit 1,500 donors, who they hope will bring friends and host watch parties, with each person virtually attending asked to give a $20 donation each.

Click here for the event page to watch the Facebook Live concert on June 24.

Donors can give to the GoFundMe Page set up for Connors, 53, a longtime Sparta resident. He previously lived with his family in Hoboken and owned a bar there.

The organizers, including his sister Debby Connors - who set up the GoFundMe for her brother on May 22 - have also coordinated a t-shirt fundraiser for him here.

The GoFundMe for her brother and his family has raised more than $45,000 as of Wednesday, to defray the costs of his medical care. It’s getting closer to the $63,000 goal needed to help him with his continued recovery after he was rushed to Summit's Overlook Medical Center on April 15. Billy Connors stayed in intensive care on a ventilator for close to a week there, after seizures complicated his healing from emergency surgery. He was transferred to Atlantic Rehab in Madison for further care.

"His goal is to get back to doing what he loves and our goal is to help him get there without the extra burden of the enormous bills he is incurring," Debby Connors wrote on GoFundMe about her brother, who she said has been a business teacher and coach in Emerson, Hoboken, Sparta and Weehawken.

"Billy resides in NJ with his wife Millie and 2 daughters, Yesenia (10) and Jamie (9) ... and their cat Clover," she also said.

In an interview with Patch, Connors said her brother and his family, who moved back to Sparta in 2008, lived in Hoboken after studying at St. Peter's College in Jersey City in the 1990s. She also said he previously owned Liberty Bar there, where he and his wife first met.

She said their father, also named Billy, was a teacher and coach himself in Hoboken, who passed away in 2014.

Of her brother, Connors also wrote, "He has been coaching as much as three sports during a single school year, including soccer, basketball, softball, football and lacrosse. He loves all aspects of his job but mostly helping the kids that need him most."

"The only thing he loves more than teaching/coaching are his daughters who he misses like crazy," she added.

"He has a long recovery ahead of him," Connors said.

Click here to visit the GoFundMe Page.

This post contains reporting from Caren Lissner.

Questions or comments about this story? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.