Julio Toro (born November 5, 1943) is a
Puerto Rican basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
coach.
Toro is known for emphasizing the mental aspects of the game and making widespread use of philosophical principles, as well as other unorthodox techniques that include the incorporation of visual aids and poetry, which has earned him the nicknames "Jedi Master" and "sensei".
International coaching career
Puerto Rico national team
At the
2004 Olympic Games
The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...
in
Athens, Greece, he made history by becoming the first non-
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
coach to defeat the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
during Olympic competition, and the first coach to defeat an American team composed of NBA players at an Olympics match.
Venezuela national team
In 1991, after players
Carl Herrera,
Gabriel Estaba and
Yván Olivares expressed dissatisfaction with then-coach of the
Venezuela national basketball team Jesús Córdobés, Francisco Diez (then president of the Instituto Nacional del Deporte) travelled to Puerto Rico with the intention of recruiting Flor Meléndez. However, after negotiations were hindered due to his BSN contract, the coach recommended Toro for the role. Following a successful reunion, he took over the team. In his first competition, Toro led Venezuela to the first place of the South American Tournament, for which received a bonus of only $1,500. Toro returned the following year, when he coached the team to the final of the
1992 FIBA Americas Tournament, losing to the "
Dream Team
Dream Team may refer to:
Sport
Basketball
* Dream Team, the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team in Barcelona
* Dream Team II, the 1994 U.S. men's national basketball team at the FIBA World Championship
* Dream Team III, the 1996 ...
". He coached until the following year, returning for a final stint in 1997.
Personal life
Toro's wife, Sibelys Prato, is a native of Venezuela. His eponymous younger son, Julito, who worked as his assistant in 2009-10, died from complications of pneumonia in 2015.
References
See also
*
List of Puerto Ricans
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toro, Julio
1943 births
Living people
BSN coaches
Puerto Rican men's basketball players