Anthony "Paul Reno (born February 9, 1974) is an American

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

coach. He is the head football coach at Yale University, a position he has held since 2012.

Early life and education

A native of Oxford, Massachusetts, Reno graduated from Oxford High School in 1993. Later that year, he enrolled at

Hobart and William Smith Colleges Hobart and William Smith Colleges are Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts colleges in Geneva, New York. They trace their origins to Geneva Academy established in 1797. Students can choose from 45 maj ...

in Geneva, New York, but soon transferred to Worcester State College in his home state of Massachusetts. Reno played football at the

free safety Safety is a position in gridiron football on the defense. The safeties are defensive backs who line up ten to fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage. There are two variations of the position: the free safety and the strong safety. Their dut ...

position for the

Worcester State Lancers Worcester State University (WSU) is a public university in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1874 and enrolls nearly 5,500 undergraduates and over 900 graduate students. History Founded in 1874 as the Massachusetts State Normal Sch ...

until 1996, under

Brien Cullen Brien A. Cullen (born November 30, 1955) is an American former college football coach. Cullen served as the head coach for the Worcester State Lancers from 1983 to 2019. Career Cullen graduated from Worcester State College with a Bachelor of Art ...

. Reno graduated a year later in 1997. He would return to the school and complete a Master of Education in health education in 2000.

Coaching career

Yale Head Football Coach Tony Reno confers with players

Upon graduating from Worcester State, Reno began his coaching career as a defensive assistant, under Richard Mannello, for the King's College Monarchs in Pennsylvania. During that 1997 season, The Monarchs finished fourth in the MAC Freedom Conference with a losing 3-7 record. A year later, in 1998, Reno returned to the Worcester State Lancers as a defensive coordinator under his former coach, Cullen. Reno remained there until 2002. While his first two years at Worcester State saw losing records, the last three were very successful, and resulted in winning the Eastern College Athletic Conference Northeast Bowl in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

. Reno's success with the Lancers opened the opportunity as a wide receivers coach, under

Jack Siedlecki Jack "Sid" Siedlecki (pronounced ; born July 23, 1951) is an American former college football coach. He was a head coach in college football for 21 years for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1988–1992), Amherst College (1993–1996) and Yale U ...

, for the Yale Bulldogs in 2003. Reno was shuffled to be the defensive backs coach a year later, a post which he held until 2008. The Bulldogs mostly hovered around a .500 win percentage during his time at Yale; however, the

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

season resulted in the team being named co- Ivy League champions, along with the Princeton Tigers. In 2009, Reno transferred within the Ivy League to work for the Harvard Crimson as a special teams and defensive backs coach under Tim Murphy. The Crimson maintained a winning record throughout Reno's time there, and won the Ivy League in his final season in 2011. On January 12, 2012, Reno was hired as the

Joel E. Smilow Joel E. Smilow is an American philanthropist and former CEO of Playtex. Early life Joel Smilow was born in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Yale University in 1954. As a student, he was sports director at the campus radio station, WYBC. ...

'54 Head Coach of Football for the Yale Bulldogs. He replaced Tom Williams and became the 34th head coach in the school's history. Notably, Reno also became the first native of Massachusetts since Ted Coy in 1910 to coach the Bulldogs. So far, the team has won three Ivy League championships under the leadership of Reno (2017, 2019 and 2022). In 2014, Reno was among the finalists for the Eddie Robinson Award, along with his former colleague, Murphy. The award ultimately went to

Sean McDonnell Sean Patrick McDonnell (born October 15, 1956) is a retired college football coach and former player, best known for his tenure as head football coach at the University of New Hampshire. Biography McDonnell, nicknamed "Coach Mac", served as the ...

of the New Hampshire Wildcats.

Personal life

Reno is married to his wife, Toni, with whom he has two sons, Dante and Vince, and one daughter, Angelina. The family resides in

Sturbridge Sturbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is home to Old Sturbridge Village living history museum and other sites of historical interest such as Tantiusques. The population was 9,867 at the 2020 census, with more ...

, Massachusetts, as well as near New Haven, Connecticut.

Head coaching record

References

External links

Yale profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reno, Tony 1974 births Living people American football safeties Harvard Crimson football coaches King's College Monarchs football coaches Worcester State Lancers football coaches Worcester State Lancers football players Yale Bulldogs football coaches People from Oxford, Massachusetts Sportspeople from Worcester County, Massachusetts Coaches of American football from Massachusetts Players of American football from Massachusetts