With football in a nebulous position and the recruiting process in a relative holding pattern, we at Golden Bear Report are looking to do interviews wherever we can. This week, we got Cal wide receivers coach Burl Toler on the line to discuss coming to Cal games as a kid, getting to Berkeley, and the coaches that have influenced him.

This is part one of an interview that has been transcribed and lightly edited for clarity.

Previous Installments: Justin Wilcox, Part One | Justin Wilcox, Part Two | Charlie Ragle, Part One | Charlie Ragle, Part Two | Peter Sirmon, Part One | Peter Sirmon, Part Two | Aristotle Thompson, Part One | Aristotle Thompson, Part Two | Angus McClure, Part One | Angus McClure, Part Two | Tim DeRuyter, Part One | Tim DeRuyter, Part Two | Andrew Browning, Part One | Andrew Browning, Part Two

TT: What sports did you play growing up?

BT: Growing up, my first sports were baseball and soccer, I played them both when I was five. I played soccer first, kind of a ‘what can I do to get out there and run around,’ I’m sure it was my parents’ thought. I had to work my schedule, when I was younger, around Cal football games, I couldn’t play any sports that had games on Saturdays. I had to find a league that played on Sundays, we found a league in Albany, it was a Jewish league and played on Sundays. I was able to do that, we had Saturdays for Cal football.

I really enjoyed (soccer), had a good time. I was able to use my speed as a kid to figure out the game. I wasn’t too technical, just ran fast and ran around. Baseball was the first sport I really dove into, I thought I was going to play professional baseball for the San Francisco Giants, and I was an avid baseball card collector. I would put my baseball card in the same lineup, I’d reorganize them, with Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, Will Clark, all those Giants names that everybody remembers, Kevin Mitchell, Royce Clayton, I would insert my baseball card into the lineup, and that was my first love, playing baseball. I played in Berkeley, in Oakland, from when I was 5-14, for 10 years, and I stopped playing once I got to high school.

TT: You said you grew up going to Cal games, was there one particular game that stuck out to you?

BT: Not necessarily a particular game, but I remember players. My brother and I (Cameron Toler, who played at Cal from 2005-08), we had a strategy of being able to reach and give a sweaty high-five or get a sweaty wristband from players going in or out of the tunnel. That was our biggest thing for the game, even before I could understand football. We’d sit underneath the North Scoreboard in the family section, it was off and on as to how packed the crowds were. There were some games that were really packed in those years, some that weren’t, I was born in 83, so from 83-2000, those years. We would go to the Faculty Club after those games, we’d play football on that slanted grass hill out there, any day you had a sweaty wristband or a sweaty glove, you were the best thing out there.

I remember watching specific players, Bobby Shaw, Russell White, Shawn Dawkins, Tony Gonzalez, hearing those names and hearing the entire football stadium go crazy, it constantly brings back memories for me, I grew up in the stadium, and got to live off getting sweaty apparel and thinking I was going to be the next big thing.

Joe Starkey, whenever I hear him now, he probably doesn’t know this, but it brings back memories because we’d listen to the game on the way to the game, if we weren’t there early enough or listen to the away game, I have vivid memories of hearing the games at home or in the car and listening to Joe Starkey announce those games. Some of those names that are still around Cal football, Mike Pawlawski comes around all the time, and that’s a name I remember hearing on the radio.

TT: When did you know you wanted to play football and how were you able to walk on at Cal?

BT: I always knew I wanted to play football growing up, it was just a matter of my mom letting me play. I actually had a birthday in Memorial Stadium before I played football, somehow my dad had a connection and made it happen, I had a flag football birthday party in Memorial Stadium when they still had astroturf.

When I was going into sixth grade, my mom finally said, ‘if you get straight As, I’ll let you play tackle football.’ At the time, I was playing soccer, I was loving it, having played for 3 or 4 years and thought I had an opportunity to play it at higher levels, but I was willing to give it up, because (football and soccer) are both fall sports. I always wanted to play (football) knowing that my grandfather had played, knowing that my dad played, seeing magazines and pictures of my dad, old footage. It was something ingrained, no one ever told me to play, but had that feeling that I was going to play.

I worked as hard as I could and I ended up getting all As and a B+. My mom, I think she knew she was going to let me play, she gave in and let me play. I played for the West County Spartans, ended up playing for West County for two years, the two years before high school.

Fast forwarding to high school, I knew I was going to a school that I was going to play football for, my sister went to O’Dowd, so it was kinda following in her path, my parents liked it, she was there for three years, so it was kind of natural that I was going to go to O’Dowd as well. I had thoughts of possibly going to De La Salle, but I built a great relationship with Paul Perenon, I still talk to him to this day and I liked the direction he had the program going. I was able to go there, had a good season my JV year, I was the only freshman playing on JV that year, then I was the only sophomore playing on varsity, played varsity for three years. Kirk Morrison, who’s now an announcer for ESPN, Josh Dean, Nick Vella, Gabe Franklin, who I crossed paths with recently, we played together in NFL Europe (are guys I played with), in sophomore year, we won the NCS championship, junior year we went far as well, and senior year we still went to the playoffs, but we didn’t go to NCS

Had a good high school career, I was always a receiver, ever since Pop Warner I played receiver, played a little defense as well, I was all-league my senior year, all-league DB. I really wanted to play football in college and I tell recruits these days that it’s different, we didn’t have Twitter to retweet and all of that when you got offers, you’d get letters in the mail and sometimes coaches would come to see you at school. Going into my junior and senior year, a little bit in my sophomore year, I was starting to get some love from some colleges. My first letter, I won’t mention the school, but it came from a school that wears red from across the Bay, it was a handwritten letter from Tyrone Willingham, that was my sophomore year, I was like ‘hey, I think I’m going to get an opportunity to get a scholarship to play in college.’ Especially since I was getting that love as a sophomore, I had good grades and I was getting attention, I thought this was going to be my route. I focused on football, I did run track, but that was to get me in shape, get me fast and keep me fast for the next level. Fast forward to my senior year, I had a box of letters, I still have a box of letters in my office, but I had zero scholarship offers on the table. I was obviously disappointed, but I had this chip on my shoulder and I think it propelled me for the rest of my career, so I’m thankful I went through it.

I still wanted to follow my dream, to continue what I started as a child, going to Cal football games on Saturday, I wanted to not only go there as a fan, but I wanted to continue going to Memorial Stadium on the field and as a player. I followed my dream, when it came down to it, I didn’t have any scholarship offers on the table, I applied to Cal, got letters of recommendation, took the SAT three times, did everything I could possibly do to be accepted into Cal, then had the opportunity to walk on, and it went from there.

One other recruiting story, there were two coaches that recruited me in high school, and when I say recruited, they took time to build a relationship, really got to know me, called me. One of them was Mark Speckman, who’s now the running backs coach at UC Davis. He’s a great guy, and was at Willamette at the time. I almost went to Willamette because of my relationship with coach Speckman, and ironically in 2017 I was the receivers coach at UC Davis and the running backs coach was Mark Speckman. Then the guy who recruited me that I had the most phone calls with, got the most letters from, he was at Sacramento State at the time, and that’s Angus McClue. They talk about how small this recruiting world is, how important relationships are and how far relationships go, not only what you know, but who you know, it’s 100% true. I built a relationship back in 2000 with Angus McClure and fast forward 20 years, we’re on the same staff. He gives me a tough time to this day because I didn’t go to Sac State, but my rebuttal is that if I did go to Sac State, we wouldn’t be on the same staff now.

Everything works out the way it’s supposed to, and I’ve learned a lot from (Speckman and McClure) as recruiters and coaches, and I’ve tried to throw away the box of letters that I had. I never could because I find myself doing the same thing, trying to be genuine in writing letters to recruits, doing things a certain way based on what I experienced. They’re not going to all look at it the same way I do, but at least I have a unique experience that I can draw from.

TT: That is a fantastic deal...

BT: I told Angus, I saw him in 2013, the first year I started coaching, and I was at a coaches convention and I had a mutual friend who introduced us, I said ‘Angus McClure, Sac State coach?’ He said ‘Burl Toler, Bishop O’Dowd, 2001?’ We were cracking up, and I said ‘coach, I want to say thank you, you called me every Saturday night, you already knew my stats, you knew what was going on, you knew what I did Friday night, you called me during your break time at juvenile hall,’ he knew what was going on, and I do that to this day.

If I have a recruit that I really want, I know what he’s doing Friday night, I give him a shout on the weekends and that’s something I learned from coach McClure back in the day. It was great to build a relationship back in the day, and then 20 years later have that same bond. I have a feeling we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with on the recruiting trail when we link up, considering our background together.

TT: You both have the Bay Area experience as well...

BT: Absolutely, and it was cool to just divvy up the schools, I think we all know that he and I know the same coaches, usually it’s ‘I don’t know these guys, you take them, you don’t know them, so I’ll take them.’ We both know just about everybody out here, so let’s just attack it the right way, we’ll split up the schools and then we’ll say ‘this week, swap these couple schools,’ hit them and have that perspective as well, it has been great linking up with him and he always has great recruiting tactics and ways to improve.

TT: You mentioned Paul Perenon as one of your influences, do you have any other coaching influences from that time or from your time at Cal and down the road?

BT: I have a unique experience, I played football from age 11 to 30. I played pop warner, high school, college, professionally including Canada, Italy, Germany, and Arena ball in four different states, so I’ve been blessed to see football from a bunch of different lenses. Throughout my career of being a fan, a player, and now a coach, I’ve been around coaches my entire life.

I had a receivers coach in Eric Kiesau where I learned some great things from when I was a player, from 2002-2004, some things I still do to this day, he was great at allowing us to visualize and put us in the right spot to make plays and understand the game. He had us playing our honest personality on the field, he put us in the right spot, we were relaxed, but we were intense. We were focused, but we still had our own way, me, Geoff MacArthur, Chase Lyman, Vinny Strang, Jonathan Makkonen, we were able to be ourselves and have our personality on the field.

We have stories to this day where we’d start cracking up in the middle of the game and there’s 70,000 fans in Memorial Stadium or down there at UCLA or USC, upwards of 100,000 on national television, where we’d have jokes in the middle of the game, talking about something, but we were still focused and making plays, which shows the level of confidence. A lot of those things came from coach Kiesau and how he coached.

When I talk about the recruiting things, Paul Perenon, my high school coach, I learned some great things from him with respect to what I do now, dealing with players and the recruiting aspect since I’m dealing with high school coaches a lot.

Going into my coaching philosophy, I really believe in relationships and how to do things, and coach Wilcox, I built a great relationship with him way back in 2003, and the crazy part about it was he was a young position coach who coached linebackers on defense, and I was a young receiver that played on offense, and we were still able to build a good relationship. I always take that with me in the way I do things now. I make the effort to go outside the box and talk to the DBs, talk to the RBs, talk to the QBs, it doesn’t matter that I coach receivers, I make an effort to connect with everybody, and there’s a common ground with every single player. From personal experience, it means a lot to connect with a position coach that’s on the other side of the ball and I did that with coach Wilcox and that’s one of the main reasons why I’m back at Cal now, with how he does business and how he builds relationships.

Couple other guys, those were more from a player-coach relationship, one thing that I looked to when coaching was the connections, and coach Kiesau gave me the opportunity to come down to Fresno State to coach receivers, he was the offensive coordinator, and Tim DeRuyter was at Fresno State, he gave me the opportunity to be a position coach for the first time, which was an unbelievable opportunity, and whenever you’re able to get that break, it’s a great thing. He had faith in me, never having coached a position before and never really having a specific recruiting area, he put a lot of faith and belief in me that I could do the job, so I’m thankful for that, once you’re a position coach, you can kinda push and it’s the next step up. Coach DeRuyter, he knew his staff, we’d have events and he’d talk about every single person on staff, from position coaches, to GAs, to quality control, he would know their names, their backgrounds, and I knew how much that meant to me, that’s something that I emulate to this day, knowing who’s in the room, what they’re doing, and their background, because everybody’s important, and coach DeRuyter did a great job of making every coach on staff feel important.

Between coach Wilcox, coach Kiesau, coach DeRuyter, Dan Hawkins over at Davis, Mark Speckman, Angus McClure, guys that I’ve spoken about already, I maintained relationships with those guys for a reason, I’ve been able to put together this all-star cast of guys that I’m surrounded by that I learn from every day that I keep in touch with. It’s a culmination of all those guys I’ve crossed paths with and what I like about each one individually and being able to put that together.