Burl Toler leaves legacy at City College

By Pete DeYoung
STAFF WRITER

Burl Abron Toler, former collegiate football star, NFL referee and educator died at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley on Aug. 16. He was 81 years old.

Toler was born in Memphis, Tenn. on May 9, 1928. He was a linebacker on championship teams at both City College and University of San Francisco before becoming the NFL’s first black referee. In addition to his career with the NFL, Toler was a teacher, counselor, coach, dean, assisstant principle and principle for over 16 years during his career at Benjamin Franklin Middle School. The school was renamed after him in 2006.

He also spent 16 years as director of personnel for the San Francisco Community College District Centers Division. He retired from that position in 1970.

“Burl was a special CCSF alumnus, with an outstanding career on both the CCSF 1948 championship football team and as a long-time employee of the district,” Chancellor Dr. Don Q. Griffin wrote of Toler shortly after his death.

“Burl was a first class guy,” said Dean George Rush, head football coach and executive assistant to the chancellor. “I never heard him say anything negative about anybody. He represented the very best in human beings.”

Toler began playing football while enrolled at City College. Starting as a seventh-stringer, he quickly shot up the depth chart in several positions including center, tackle and eventually linebacker.

In the team’s first practice during the 1948 season, despite never having played organized football, Toler shed three separate blocks to make three separate tackles on future Pro Football Hall of Famer Ollie Matson.

During the 1948 season, the Rams finished 12-0 only allowing a mere 55 points all season and won a national junior college title. Toler and Matson went on to become close friends, continuing both their education and football careers at USF.

The 1951 USF football team was the only team in NCAA history to include three future Pro Football Hall of Fame players on one roster.

Despite finishing with a 9-0 record and an average margin of victory of 33-8, the “Unbeaten, Untied, Uninvited” Dons were denied a bid to the Sun Bowl because the team refused to play without its two black players Matson and Toler.

“When we found out Burl and Ollie weren’t going to go, we said, ‘Stick it in your butt – we ain’t going,'” former USF teammate and Pro Football Hall of Famer Geno Marchetti told the Chronicle.

Despite playing with 10 future NFL players and three future Hall of Famers, Marchetti says that the best player on the Dons was Toler.

“I’ve said it about a hundred times,” Marchetti said to the Chronicle. “Burl Toler was the best. He had everything an athlete should have: He loved the game, he was fast and he was the best tackler I’ve ever seen. He would have been a hell of an NFL linebacker.”

Toler was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 1951 draft but never played a down in the NFL due to a knee injury in a 1952 collegiate All-Star game.

Toler became the first black NFL official in 1965. Toler was also the head lineman official for Super Bowl XIV in 1980. He retired from the NFL in 1990.

“He always did everything with such grace, and always had a smile on his face, through so much adversity,” USF athletics director Debra Gore-Mann said. “He has always been a monumental figure in San Francisco. Even after all the years, he was someone that we still took great pride in as an alumnus.”

Toler’s wife, Melvia, died in 1991. Toler is survived by his daughters Valerie, Susa and Jennifer; his sons Burl Jr., Gregory and Martel and his brother Arnold.

At the family’s request, a scholarship will be established in his memory at USF to benefit the youth of San Francisco.