Yale’s Dante Reno makes statement one day after father’s shocking death

One day after his father passed away, Yale quarterback Dante Reno had the tough task of playing a football game.
Tony Reno, Yale’s head football coach from 2012-25, died Friday, Oct. 2, less than a year after he took a medical leave of absence after being diagnosed with a rare neurogenerative disease. On Saturday, his son threw for 298 yards and four touchdowns as Yale beat Merrimack, 41-24.
Merrimack led 14-7 after a quarter, and the teams were tied 24-24 after three. Reno’s 20-yard touchdown pass to Garon Kemp at 12:50 of the fourth quarter gave the Bulldogs a lead they would not relinquish.
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Reno became Yale’s head coach after more than a decade on the Bulldogs’ coaching staff and guided the program to Ivy League titles in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2025. He finished with 83 victories, second in Yale history behind Carmen Cozza.
In 2025, Yale won the Ivy League championship and earned the conference’s first automatic berth in the NCAA FCS Subdivision playoffs.
Saturday’s win was less historic, but certainly more sentimental for their junior quarterback.
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After the win, Dante Reno said with brevity what everyone watching the game was thinking: “This one’s for you pops,” he wrote on Twitter/X.
Off the field, tributes began pouring in after the university announced Reno’s death on Friday.
“While his accomplishments on the football field were remarkable,” Yale athletic director Victoria Chun said, “it is the relationships he built and the lives he changed that will define his enduring legacy.”
“Coach Tony Reno was a leader, a mentor, and so much more to the Yale football and coaching communities,” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont wrote on X. “My thoughts are with his family, friends, and players past and present as they mourn his passing.”
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