Former Yale football head coach Tony Reno died on Friday.
Reno served as head coach of the Yale Bulldogs from 2012 to 2025; he resigned as head coach after being diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a rare neurodegenerative brain condition. In that time, he led the Bulldogs to five Ivy League championships. He was 52 years old.
“Today, we are deeply saddened by the loss of an extraordinary member of the Yale Athletics family,” Victoria M. “Vicky” Chun, Thomas A. Beckett director of athletics at the University, said in a statement on the team website on Friday.
“Tony Reno devoted his life to serving others and approached every day with humility, compassion, and purpose. He believed deeply in the power of mentorship and invested wholeheartedly in the success and well-being of his players, colleagues, and friends.”
“While his accomplishments on the football field were remarkable, it is the relationships he built and the lives he changed that will define his enduring legacy. Our thoughts are with Toni, Dante, Angelina, Vince, and the entire Reno family during this time,” Chun added.
Reno played college football at Division III Worcester State in Massachusetts. After graduating in 1997, he joined the staff of D-III King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
He then returned to Worcester State as defensive coordinator from 1998–2002. He found his way to New Haven in 2003 as the wide receivers coach at Yale, before being switched to defensive backs coach in 2004. He served in the position from 2004 to 2008. He joined the staff of the Harvard Crimson in 2009 as a special teams and DBs coach, a role he held until 2011.
He returned to Yale in 2012 as their head coach. In his time as head coach, he amassed an 83–49 record and won five Ivy League Championships in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2025.
The 2017 season was Yale’s first outright Ivy League championship in 37 years. He was the named Ivy League Coach of the Year in 2022.
In 2025, Yale earned the Ivy League’s first-ever automatic FCS playoff berth and won their first-round matchup against Youngstown State 43–42; the Bulldogs finished ranked No. 13 in the FCS that season.
He stepped down from his position after the 2025 season, citing health reasons; a crowdfunding website for his family revealed that he was diagnosed with CJD.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CJD is a rare, incurable, terminal brain disease caused by prions, which can cause abnormal folding of normal proteins in the brain.
CJD presents sporadically in the vast majority of cases; only 5 to 15 percent of cases are genetic. A handful of cases come from exposure to prions in healthcare settings or from biological products. The disease is more common in people aged 55 and older.
CJD typically manifests in neurological symptoms such as trouble walking, sudden jerky movements, and visual disturbances. Once those symptoms occur, the median time to death is four to five months.
Reno is survived by his wife, Toni, and their children, Dante, Angelina, and Vince. Dante Reno is a junior at Yale and the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback. As a sophomore in 2025, he completed 206 of 318 passes for 2,498 yards and 21 touchdowns with 10 interceptions. In the 2026 season opener, he completed 30 of 43 passes for 454 yards and five scores.
“Tony was a man who valued the important things in life. Family always came first, and that was evident in the special family he built and the love the Reno family shares,” current Yale head coach Kevin Cahill said.
“As a coach, Tony loved his players and held them to a standard they often didn’t know they were capable of reaching. He was hard on them and demanding, but every day, they knew he cared about them.”
“It was never about him or simply about winning championships; it was about developing young men and leaders and helping them become the best versions of themselves. Along the way, we won a lot of football games. Tony will be missed dearly. His impact on so many lives will never be forgotten, and his legacy will forever be a part of the Yale Football family,” Cahill said.
