Tom Tani

Tom Tani joined Monmouth in 1981 from Montclair RFC.  Kevin Welter called him to play with Monmouth in the Middletown Summer Soccer League.  Tom enjoyed it so much he decided to join the rugby club and has been a member ever since.
Tom played mostly B side, as well as some A side, mostly at hooker.  His biggest contributions to Monmouth were “off the pitch”.  He served as Monmouth’s President from 1983-1985, Vice President from 1986-1987 and as President again from 1998-1997.  He also served the Met New York Union as a Secretary and the Northeast Rugby Union as Treasurer. When the Met Union began to require clubs to supply a referee, he became Monmouth’s referee.   He enjoyed that so much he took up the whistle full time, eventually making it the USA Territorial (B) Panel.  He also served as the Rugby Referee Society of New York President from 1999-2006.
Tom has many great memories of his time with Monmouth, but two stand out.   First is the 1991 World Cup Tour, where we first got the dream of getting a club house of our own.   Second was working with everyone to make that dream a reality in 1995. Tom is currently an active firefighter and referee. Tom is around always, and much like Frank Fischer, if a younger current player has not met him yet, it is of their own fault. We seek you to find him, and ask if he’s heard any good Judge Ito jokes, lately…