Long Island’s Track and Field community suffered a loss on January 9th as former Champion Runner, Longwood High School Coach, and Section XI Cross Country and Track and Field Director Tony Toro passed away at the age of 77 on January 9th.
Toro – who was born in Puerto Rico on January 5th, 1947 – moved to Long Island at a young age and soon became one of the best runners in Suffolk County history as a member of the Port Jefferson High School Cross Country and Track team in the mid 1960s.
While he was a member of the Royals, Toro was an outdoor county champion in the mile and the Class A county champion in 1965 and 1966. He also was the county record holder in multiple different events (the one mile run running 4:24 on a dirt track and the Sunken Meadow 2.4 Mile Course record of 12:18).
After a successful high school career, Toro went on to star at the now defunct Yankton College in South Dakota before moving back to Miller Place where he received his masters at Stony Brook University and began his career as a Track coach at Longwood High School.
Toro started off as an assistant coach for the Lions in 1969 before he was elevated to the head coaching role in 1972.
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| Toro at his alma mater while coaching for Longwood. Longwood Booster Club |
During that span, he also coached two individual state champions in Cross Country, Kevin Krause (Class A, 1987) and Kevin Hogan (Class A, 1990).
His teams were equally as dominant on the track as Longwood’s spring track team won 15 league titles and six county championships (1978, '83, '88, '89, '91 and '92) during his tenure.
After a successful tenure at Longwood, Toro went on to win a state Federation title while coaching St. Anthony’s in 1998.
Following the 1999 season, Toro officially retired from coaching and founded the race timing company Just-In-Time Racing. It became the first electronic timing system to be used on Long Island and helped athletes receive more accurate results than a normal hand time.
“He introduced fully electronic timing when no one else was doing it,” said Half Hollow Hills East Coach Jim Christian, who helped take over Just-In-Time Racing in 2020 when Toro retired. "It really put Suffolk in a great position because it gave the kids a chance to see their numbers from every single meet in one place."
Toro became a staple at every Suffolk track and cross country meet, recording the times of every athlete and publishing them on his website (Justintime.com) immediately after the event.
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| Tony Toro Coaching a Cross Country Meet at Sunken Meadow. @justintimeracing | Instagram |
Just-In-Time Racing ultimately became an islandwide business and remains the primary source of results for Suffolk, Nassau and Catholic meets.
Christian recalled Toro being asked why he charged so little for his services, to which he replied, “I love the sport and want things to be good for the kids.”
Toro officially stepped down as Section XI Cross Country and Track and Field Director in 2022, two years after stepping away from Just In Time Racing. He was survived by his wife, Lynn, with whom he shared 53 years of marriage; his son T. J.; his daughter-in-law, Krystina; his siblings Louis (Lydia) Toro, Angel (Teresa) Toro, Noemi (Angelo) Messina, Jimmy (Toni) Colon, Diana (Bill) Hayes, Rick (Sonya) Colon, and Nancy Colon and his in-laws; Sandy Nuytten, Kerry Eisenmenger, Jane (Barry) Weidauer, Joe (Shirley) VanOverbeke, Cathy (David) Pavlak, and Brad (Kelsey) VanOverbeke.
According to a few sources close to the Toro family, a private funeral service was already held.