Toron Receives AVCA Thirty Under 30 Award

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State assistant coach Brian Toron was named an American Volleyball Coaches Association Thirty Under 30 award recipient on Thursday.
 
The Thirty Under 30 award, created in 2009, honors up-and-coming coaches at all levels of volleyball—college, high school, and club—and the recipients serve in a range of roles, from head coach to volunteer assistant to club director. Nominees had to be younger than 30 years old in 2021 to qualify for the award.
 
Toron is set to begin his third season at Penn State. He was recently elevated to an assistant coach role after two years of successful work as the team’s director of operations, helping the Lions advance to the NCAA Tournament and finish in the AVCA Coaches Poll both seasons.
 
Since moving up to the assistant coach position at Penn State, Toron has helped the staff hit the ground running. The Lions received six commitments from players in the transfer portal in a span of less than three months, including three players that earned all-conference honors at their previous school, another that was an honorable-mention All-American by Volleyball Magazine, and two highly-touted incoming freshmen.
 
Toron has already accomplished a lot in his coaching career, helping teams win at multiple stops along the way. Prior to his time at Penn State, he spent two seasons at Hofstra, where the Pride went 42-20 overall and 23-9 in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). In his first season as an assistant coach, the Pride went 25-8 overall and earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament after winning the CAA regular season and Tournament titles. It was the team’s first CAA title since 2014.
 
Hofstra was Toron’s second job in the CAA. He began his coaching career as a member of Delaware’s volleyball staff, where he served in a variety of roles from 2014 until 2016. He started as a volunteer assistant coach before moving up the ladder to become the director of volleyball operations for a year before being named the interim head coach during the 2016 campaign. After earning the interim role, Toron led the Blue Hens to a 10-3 record and a spot in the Colonial Athletic Association Championship match. 
 
In between his two CAA stops, Toron was the technical coordinator with the Northwestern volleyball team. While a member of the Wildcats staff he assisted with…