lit a candle 4h agoNever watched Yale football once in my life, but I read he used to tell his kids the scoreboard just tells you the time left to fix something. That's a better line than most history books I've read.
Their story
Anthony Paul Reno was an American college football coach who led Yale University to five Ivy League championships and became the program's second-winningest head coach. He died on 2 October 2026 at age 52 from complications of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Reno was born on 9 February 1974 in Oxford, Massachusetts, and…
Anthony Paul Reno was an American college football coach who led Yale University to five Ivy League championships and became the program's second-winningest head coach. He died on 2 October 2026 at age 52 from complications of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Reno was born on 9 February 1974 in Oxford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Oxford High School in 1992. After a brief enrollment at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, he transferred to Worcester State College, where he played free safety for the Lancers through 1996 under Brien Cullen. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1997 and later a Master of Education in health education in 2000.
His coaching career began in 1997 as a defensive assistant at King's College in Pennsylvania. From 1998 to 2002 he was defensive coordinator at Worcester State, helping the Lancers win the 2001 ECAC Northeast Bowl. Yale hired him in 2003 under Jack Siedlecki, first as wide receivers coach and then as defensive backs coach through 2008; the Bulldogs shared the 2006 Ivy title. From 2009 to 2011 he coached special teams and defensive backs at Harvard under Tim Murphy, including the Crimson's 2011 Ivy championship season.
On 12 January 2012 Yale named Reno the Joel E. Smilow '54 Head Coach of Football, the 34th head coach in school history and the first Massachusetts native to hold the job since Ted Coy in 1910. Over fourteen seasons (2012-2025) his Bulldogs went 83-49 overall and 55-36 in Ivy play, winning or sharing Ivy titles in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2025. The 2025 team earned Yale's first automatic berth in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. He was named Ivy League Coach or Coaching Staff of the Year in 2022 and 2025 and was a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Award in 2014. His win total ranked second in Yale history behind Carm Cozza.
In December 2025 Yale announced that Reno was taking a medical leave for a rare illness. He stepped down as head coach on 17 February 2026 after a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, calling the Yale job the greatest honor of his life. Footballscoop, WTNH and other outlets reported his death on 2 October 2026. He is survived by his wife Toni and their children Dante, a Yale quarterback, Vince and Angelina. Athletic director Vicky Chun and former players remembered a coach who led with integrity and humility beyond championships and wins.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Footballscoop; WTNH.com.
Photos
1Yale head football coach Tony Reno at the Brown vs Yale game, 6 November 2021
by People Forever
Dante's said something close to that in interviews, think it stuck with the whole family.