IRVINGTON, NJ — As a track-and-field standout, Tosca Blandford-Bynoe unquestionably was one of the greatest athletes in Irvington High School history.
In her senior year in 1982, she won the 100-meter hurdles in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s state outdoor Meet of Champions, becoming the school’s first Meet of Champions winner.
Track-and-field has meant so much to Blandford-Bynoe. She later became a track coach at Willingboro High School, the alma mater of famed track siblings Carl Lewis and Carol Lewis. Blandford-Bynoe was the coach for the school for more than 20 years from 2001 to last spring.
But more than anything, track-and-field has allowed Blandford-Bynoe to embark on her professional career.
For the past three-plus decades, she has worked in the state Attorney General’s office. She also recently has been nominated by Governor Murphy to be appointed as a superior court judge in Gloucester County. She will find out if she has won appointment at the next senate judiciary committee meeting scheduled for May 18.
“Track-and-field has been a constant in my life since my high school years,” said Blandford-Bynoe in a phone interview with the Irvington Herald on Wednesday, March 22.” I can’t adequately express what those years at Irvington meant for me and the doors that opened for me, as a young African-American woman, and having two coaches that pretty much told me, if I wanted it, I could do it.”
Those two coaches were Willie Sheppard and Barnes Reid. In fact, Reid has been the head coach of the IHS girls track team for more than 40 years.
Blandford-Bynoe signed up for track-and-field when she was a freshman at East Orange High School. In November of her sophomore year, she moved to Irvington.
In her junior season, she took up hurdling and was mentored by Sheppard and Barnes in what she described as their unorthodox style of coaching. That unorthodox coaching worked for her. She won the county title in her junior season. As a senior, she won the indoor state group title, but didn’t have a great performance at the Meet of Champions. However, in the spring season, she went undefeated, capped by her Meet of Champions title.
Blandford-Bynoe continued her track career at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, recruited by Frank Gagliano, and received partial athletic financial assistance. She enjoyed a stellar career at Rutgers, winning multiple Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships, and qualified for the NCAA nationals.
After receiving her bachelor of science in criminal justice in 1986, Blandford-Bynoe attended Rutgers University Law School in 1987. She graduated from Rutgers Law School in 1991 and was admitted to the state bar in 1992.
While coaching at Willingboro, Blandford-Bynoe has worked in the state Attorney General’s office. For the first nine years of her career, she worked in the Department of Law and Safety. For the past 26 years, she has worked in the Division of Law.
Her passion is child advocacy.
“I have been a child advocate my entire career,” she said. “Part of my assignment with the Division of Law is the DCF (Department of Children and Families) Practice Group, which means that I represent the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, which is formerly known as DYFS (Division of Youth & Family Services), in their efforts to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of children. That’s been my legal career.”
Blandford-Bynoe said her work is very fulfilling.
“I am very proud of my time working alongside the division in its efforts to protect children and to stabilize families in need,” said Blandford-Bynoe, who has lived in Williamstown since 2005.
As a coach, Blandford-Bynoe has guided Willingboro to more than 10 championships. She has passed along the knowledge that she gained from her coaches, who always stressed the importance of education. During state meets throughout her coaching career, she would always acknowledge and congratulate Irvington athletes who were at those meets as a proud IHS alum.
For the past few weeks, Blandford-Bynoe has reflected on her amazing journey.
“I have been in a perpetual state of reflection for the past two weeks, on the journey that has gotten me to this point,” she said. “One of the things that I realize is that I did not intentionally prepare for this, but my life’s journey has prepared me for it. I cannot underscore the significance of athletics in my journey. I remember being a high school freshman with one foot in the right thing – meaning my mother wanted me to go to school and be a good student and so forth – and one foot in the social environment that was around me. When I went out for track – and I don’t even know why I went out for track, to be quite honest – and I made the team, and I had a coach that said to the whole team, ‘You cannot be on this team with C’s on your report card,’ and I was at East Orange High School when that happened. The idea that I wanted to be on the team – and I wasn’t good at that time – it forced me into the classroom to be the student that I was able to be, and from that point on, I remained that student.
“When I got to Irvington, the athletic environment was so much more inviting. I just loved the environment. My junior year, I found hurdling, and I was good at that. My junior year, Mr. Reid and Mr. Shepherd introduced me to hurdling, and here was a thing that I could do on my own, and I was good at it.”
Blandford-Bynoe will always credit her support system, particularly Reid and Sheppard.
“I could not have had a better group of coaches around me at the time,” she said. “I am so grateful to have them coach me and I am so grateful to still have both of them in my life.
“Track opened the world to me,” Blandford-Bynoe continued. “It opened college opportunities, and it just went from there. I look back and I keep asking myself, ‘How did I get here?’ I am very proud for a host of reasons. My mother was a single mother for the first 12 years of my life, and she had limited education. I look at that, and I say ‘How did I get here?’ (It’s) because I had the right people in my life at the right time, and here I am.”
Irvington HS track legend Tosca Blandford-Bynoe reflects on her amazing journey added by Joe Ragozzino on
View all posts by Joe Ragozzino →