Cal Poly Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1989
An outstanding football and baseball player while at Cal Poly, Ted Tollner was the starting quarterback for two seasons and pitcher for four seasons. He was an All Conference selection in both football and baseball and represented the USA baseball team in the 1962 Pan American games. He survived the football team plane crash in 1960 which killed 22 people. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1962 and later received his master's degree in physical education.
Ted has compiled over 30 years as a football coach.
Tollner's first coaching job was at Morro Bay High School. He served for a year there before moving on to Woodside High School, where he worked one year as offensive coordinator before becoming head coach. Tollner then coached at College of San Mateo from 1968 to 1972. He served as the offensive coordinator for San Diego State under Claude Gilbert from 1973 to 1980. He also served as the quarterbacks coach at Brigham Young (BYU) in 1981.
He became offensive coordinator of the USC Trojans football program under head coach John Robinson in 1982, and succeeded to the head coaching position a year later when Robinson stepped down to take an administrative post at the university. During his four-year tenure, Tollner compiled a 26–20–1 record. He led the Trojans to the Pacific-10 conference championship in 1984.
In 1987 he began coaching with the Buffalo Bills. In 1989 he was hired with the San Diego Chargers and then moved up to Los Angeles to work with the Rams for the 1992 and 1993 seasons. From 1994 to 2001 he was the head coach at San Diego State University. He has coached in the East-West Shrine Games, Rose Bowl, Aloha Bowl, Citrus Bowl and Japan Bowl.
A quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers in the early-2000s, Tollner became the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions in 2005 and returned to the 49ers in 2007. Tollner was passing game coordinator for the Oakland Raiders from 2009-11. He has three children and nine grandchildren and currently resides in San Francisco with his wife Barbara.
