The sport of basketball runs deep in Wellington’s Toledo family.
Father Rudy Toledo was a shooting guard at Santaluces High School under legendary head coach Willie Gibson in the mid-1990s. For the last six years, Rudy has been the head coach of the girls varsity basketball team at Wellington High School.
Mother Catalina Toledo, who works at WHS, is a team mom for her husband’s teams and is a key volunteer for the Wellington Wolves travel basketball organization. Rudy and Catalina are the proud parents of two talented basketball players — son Nico and daughter Gaby.
Nico Toledo, a 2018 WHS graduate, is a graduate of Eastern Florida State College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business marketing and management. At WHS, Nico played three years of varsity basketball for head coach Matt Colin. In each season, Nico helped lead his fellow Wolverine teammates to a berth in the Florida High School Athletic Association’s final four in Lakeland.
“As parents, my wife and I got used to the boys basketball season ending in Lakeland for three straight years,” Rudy recalled.
Nico was the starting point guard on the WHS team that went undefeated during the 2017-18 season, only to lose to Oak Ridge High School in the state championship game, 71-60. In that game, Nico scored 19 points. That year, which was Nico’s senior season, the Wolverines finished with a record of 31-1, which was and remains the best record in WHS boys basketball history.
“After Trent Frazier graduated in 2017, nobody expected the boys varsity basketball team at WHS to be very good at all,” Nico said. “We surprised everybody by reaching the state finals in 2018, only to lose our only game of the year to Oak Ridge.”
Nico had a college basketball career that started at Webber International University in Babson Park, Florida. He was at Webber for two years, where he was the starting point. Then, he used his final two years of athletic eligibility at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, where he was also the school’s starting point guard.
Today, Nico is the head basketball coach of the girls junior varsity basketball team at WHS, serves as an assistant coach on his father’s varsity team, and he’s one of the coaches for the Wellington Wolves’ 10th grade boys team.
According to Rudy, Nico has the ability to see untapped potential as a coach.
“Nico’s strength as a coach is in player development,” Rudy said. “He understands the importance of basic, fundamental skills — dribbling, footwork and passing.”
As for daughter Gaby Toledo, she played four years of varsity basketball at WHS before graduating in 2023. During her high school career, she joined an exclusive club of WHS girls varsity basketball players, scoring more than 1,000 points in her varsity career.
After playing at WHS, Gaby attended Palm Beach State College, where she played for the women’s basketball team. While at PBSC, which plays under the auspices of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), she and her teammates were the Region 8, Division 2 champions in the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 seasons.
After using two years of collegiate athletic eligibility at PBSC, Gabi transferred to Rutgers University-Camden in New Jersey, which is an NCAA Division III institution. At Rutgers-Camden, Gaby is the team’s starting shooting guard and has one more year of college eligibility. At Rutgers-Camden, she is pursuing a degree in health science with a minor in political science.
Even though Gaby is a long way from home, that hasn’t deterred her parents from watching a few games in person last season.
“We took a few airplane trips up there to watch her team play a few games,” Catalina said. “We’ll do the same thing this coming season.”
So, with ongoing obligations to the girls high school basketball program at WHS, the coaching needs with the Wellington Wolves and a daughter playing college basketball in New Jersey, the upcoming 2026-27 school year will continue to revolve around basketball for the Toledo family.
“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Catalina and Rudy agreed.
