Tony Tokarz walked away from a chance to work with Mike Norvell earlier in his young coaching career, so when another opportunity presented itself, he couldn’t pass it up.
Tokarz, a former Division III quarterback at Worchester State College, was a graduate assistant at Memphis under coach Justin Fuente in 2015. When Fuente left to take the Virginia Tech job the following year and the university hired Norvell to coach the Tigers, he received an offer to remain with the program.
“He said, ‘I don’t know what position will be. I don’t know if it’ll be quality control or graduate assistant, but I’ve seen your work here for the last few weeks during this transition and how you felt us and I want to give you the opportunity to stay on,” Tokarz recalled.