In a press conference this afternoon, Tony Reno officially became Yale’s 34th head football coach. Below are a few notable quotables from the event.

Tony Reno:

When the opportunity came up, it was something that was unbelievable to me. But Yale has always been a home to my family and me. We had three of our kids here and it’s always been a place that we thought was different than anything else with the tradition and honor and the care of the program in the community. We are excited to be back.

We are going to build a tough, physical and hard-nosed football program that can deal with adversity, and that’s challenge number one, to be able to install that kind of mentality in our players.

We are in good shape [for recruiting] and we are going to put together a great class and make Yale proud.

The feel of Yale is different. [The football program] means so much here. People believe in the Blue and White here.

Toni Reno (Tony’s wife):

We are very excited. We are kind of in a whirlwind right now, so it hasn’t really settled in.

We knew eventually we’d be back. We kept all our Blue, so we are ready to go.

Director of Athletics Tom Beckett:

I want to start with the student athletes of Yale University who play this game of football. They are at the core of everything we do. I know there has been doubt and there have been questions, but your belief in your university has never wavered and I cannot thank you enough.

He took the process by storm. He was dynamic. He was motivational, organized, with an exceptional vision of what we could wrap our heads around.

His experience at Yale preparing for Harvard, his experience at Harvard planning for Yale – those are priceless. He watched how Harvard prepared for Dartmouth and he did the same how Yale prepared for Dartmouth, so now he can combine all of this information and he can create a plan that we know to be very effective.