About 300 Attend Service for Toran In Indianapolis

Safety Stacey Toran was an All-Pro player even though he never had a chance to earn the title, Raider assistant coach Willie Brown said Friday in eulogizing the player who was killed in an auto accident last weekend.

“We knew, his teammates knew--we all knew--he was All-Pro,” said Brown, a member of the National Football League Hall of Fame.

Fellow Raiders Greg Bell and Greg Townsend served as pallbearers.

Toran, 27, died Saturday when his car struck a tree near his Los Angeles home. An autopsy report released Thursday showed Toran’s blood alcohol level was .32%, more than three times the legal limit.

More than 300 family members and friends attended services in the gymnasium at Broad Ripple High School, where Toran had played basketball and football in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Flowers surrounded the open silver casket, which rested near a makeshift alter under the scoreboard.

“This is the toughest thing in the world for me to do, to talk about someone so kind,” said Brown, wiping tears from his eyes.

Brown said Toran was a strong but kind man who talked often about his family and his home in Indiana.

Toran’s mother, Christine Toran, sobbed throughout much of the 1 1/2-hour service during which representatives of Gov. Evan Bayh and Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut offered condolences.

Cliff Sedan, who coached Toran in football, basketball and track in seventh and eighth grades, said he remembered Toran as a great competitor. He added that Toran’s family should be proud of him.

“If my two boys turn out to be half as good at Stacey Toran, I will be a very happy man,” Sedan said.

Toran played wide receiver and defensive back on Broad Ripple’s football team. As a senior during the 1979-80 school year, he was captain of the school’s basketball and football teams.

Toran went on to play cornerback at Notre Dame, where he was defensive co-captain his senior year.