TJ Toivonen joined the Denison men's lacrosse program in August of 2024. He will serve as Defensive Coordinator for the Big Red.
Toivonen comes from Transylvania University after serving as an Assistant Coach with the Pioneers for the past three seasons.
After completing a five-year playing career with the Pioneers which spanned from 2016-2021, Toivonen began his next chapter with the Transylvania men’s lacrosse program in a coaching capacity. The Pioneers won the HCLC and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2024. Transylvania had advanced to the CCIW Tournament Finals in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
Toivonen, the program’s all-time leader in caused turnovers and one of the first two Pioneer men’s lacrosse players to be selected to the USILA Senior All-Star game.
In the spring of 2021, Toivonen completed an illustrious run with the Transylvania men’s lacrosse program as a student-athlete, serving as the foundation of the program’s first four appearances in the NCAA Tournament. As a defender and long-stick midfielder for the Pioneers, Toivonen was a three-time conference Defensive Player of the Year and completed his career ranked sixth all-time in NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse caused turnovers with 182.
Prior to graduation, Toivonen earned IMLCA All-Region Honorable Mention as a defender and was named the 2021 Pioneer Men’s Sport Athlete of the Year at the annual RAFY awards.
Toivonen held a variety of coaching roles in his career prior to joining TU, as he has worked with the Commonwealth Kings, and Lacrosse Northwest, a youth lacrosse travel club based in Portland, Oregon near his hometown of Sherwood, Oregon.
