But the best player on that team, Marchetti and others insist, didn't play a down in the NFL.

"I've said it about a hundred times," Marchetti said Monday. "Burl Toler was the best. He had everything an athlete should have: He loved the game, he was fast and he was the best tackler I've ever seen. He would have been a hell of an NFL linebacker."

Mr. Toler was the No. 1 draft pick of the Cleveland Browns, but blew out his knee playing against the defending NFL champion Los Angeles Rams in the College All-Star Game in Chicago.

Mr. Toler, who died Sunday at age 81 at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley, was mourned by his former teammates at CCSF and USF and by others who knew him in his 25-year career as an NFL official and his many years as an educator in San Francisco. He was the NFL's first African American official.

Mr. Toler didn't play football in high school in Memphis. He didn't decide to play until his senior year, when a severe burn on his arm in a kitchen accident kept him from playing; he served as the team water boy instead.

He briefly attended LeMoyne (now LeMoyne-Owen) College before an uncle who lived in Oakland invited him to the Bay Area in 1948. He attended CCSF and was spotted in a gym class by an assistant coach, who invited him to try out for football.

"Nobody could block Burl because he was so strong and quick," said Walt Jourdan, a former CCSF running back. "He didn't even have a uniform. Ollie Matson ran three straight dive plays, and Burl stopped him all three times. Then Ollie ran a sweep, and Burl was there to meet him."

According to Jourdan, Matson immediately walked over to the linebacker and said, "My name is Ollie Matson. What's yours?" The player from Memphis quickly was installed in the starting lineup.

Their 1948 CCSF team finished 12-0 and gave up only 62 points all season, winning a mythical national junior college title. Mr. Toler and Matson went to USF and another undefeated season.

The Dons of 1951 were one of the greatest college teams of all time, but they weren't invited to a bowl game. Publicly the reason was USF's soft schedule, but apparently the real reason was that the Southeastern Conference, which controlled the bowls, didn't want any African American players. USF had two, Mr. Toler and Matson.

USF had defeated College of the Pacific 47-14 at Stockton in a game that was supposed to determine which team went to a bowl. Instead, Pacific went to the Sun Bowl, and the Dons (9-0) got nothing.

There was talk at the time that the Dons could have gotten a bowl if they were willing to leave Mr. Toler and Matson behind. To a man, the Dons wouldn't think of it.

"When we found out Burl and Ollie weren't going to go, we said, 'Stick it in your butt - we ain't going,' " Marchetti said. "The interesting part was that afterward, you never heard anybody on the team squawk about it behind closed doors."

Mr. Toler was touched by the team's stand, according to St. Clair, who became an All-Pro tackle with the 49ers. "He was extremely elated over the fact we as a whole team considered him one of our brothers. He was our teammate regardless of his skin color."

A further sad postscript on the 1951 season came when USF, losing $70,000 a year on football, dropped the sport before the next season.

Like Marchetti, St. Clair marveled at Mr. Toler's ability. Referring to the Hall of Fame, he said, "If anybody (from that team) should have been in it, it was him. He was so humble and such a great player - always a team player, a man's man."

Marchetti, who also played in the College All-Star Game, said the 6-foot-2, 210-pounder was used out of position at defensive end, and that it might have led to his injury. "That ruined him," he said. "The Rams ran a sweep and he took three guys out, but he never got up. I can remember it like it was yesterday. He was walking out of the locker room and fell."

Mr. Toler became an NFL official with the help of then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle, a former USF publicist. Mr. Toler was the first African American official to work a Super Bowl; he would officiate at three of them. One of his most challenging assignments was as head linesman at the AFC Championship Game between the Chargers and Bengals in Cincinnati in January 1982. In terms of wind chill, at minus-59 degrees, it was the coldest game in NFL history.

Mr. Toler retired as an official in 1990, but continued as an NFL observer, grading other officials. For 17 years, he was a teacher, then principal at San Francisco's Benjamin Franklin Middle School, which was renamed in his honor in 2006. He later handled teacher credentials for the San Francisco Community College District.

His son Burl Jr. played linebacker for Cal in the mid-'70s, and grandson Burl III was a wide receiver for the Bears from 2001 through '04.

Mr. Toler's wife, Melvia, died in 1991. He is survived by his brother, Arnold, of Memphis; daughters Valerie of Hayward, Susan Carr of Altadena and Jennifer of Berkeley; and sons Burl Jr. of El Sobrante, Gregory of Oakland and Martel of San Francisco. At the family's request, a scholarship will be established in his memory at USF.

The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Aug. 26 at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. The viewing will be at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday , with a rosary at 7:30.

E-mail Tom FitzGerald at tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle