Here is the transcript of Coach Taylor's speech presented at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Annapolis on October 6, 2019
Wrestling In My Soul
I apologize
in advance if I bore you with my speech.
As far as I know, I only get to do this once and I don’t want to miss
anything. Don’t worry though, I will be
posting the transcript on my blog so you can easily go back and pick up the
parts you sleep thru.
I am honored
yet very humbled to be here today. To
me, coaching wrestling has never been about awards and accolades, it has been
about working with kids, teaching them values they can use the rest of their
lives while giving them the opportunity to be a part of the greatest sport on
the planet and putting wrestling in their souls.
I would like
to thank the committee, especially my mentor, Luke Broadwater, for considering
me for enshrinement. There are so many
worthy souls who have committed themselves to our sport and I am honored to be
a part of this group. Congratulations to
my fellow inductees. I know the
commitment you have made.
I would like
to thank my family for their encouragement and unwavering support throughout my
career. We brought the whole crew
today. Well there are a couple missing,
but at least we brought the loud ones.
It is
impossible to run a successful program without the support of the school system
and the community. Oakland Maryland, the
Garrett County Board of Education and Southern Garrett High School have been
amazing supporters of our wrestling program.
I thank them all for putting their faith in me to lead our team.
To say that
I am indebted to my assistant coaches would be an extreme understatement. There is no doubt, I would not be standing
here today without the outstanding commitment to Southern Wrestling put forth
by our incredible assistant coaches.
Coach Tim Rush and Dan Clark have been by my side for most of my
career. Justin Gregory and Chad King
have also served our team for over 10 years each. Also a huge part of our success was The Dad
Squad. George Scheffel, Darryl Ozias,
Chuck Fitzwater and Jason Burgess each put in years of service not only for
their sons but for our entire team.
Without these men, I would be just another average coach and Southern
would be just another average team.
Finally, I
want to thank the 100s of wrestlers and their family who I have had the honor
and pleasure of working with thru the years.
I am proud to have played small part in the growth of some of Garrett
County’s finest young men…and a few women...
Being the head coach of Southern Garrett Wrestling is not a job, it has
been a great privilege and I am one lucky guy.
I am
constantly amazed at how seemingly small decisions in life can change your
direction in drastic ways. I was a
skinny little 14 year old impressionable kid who had just moved to Barrington,
Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was
the fall of my 10th grade year and I rode the bus each morning with
Tom, Billy and Pat. Tom was on the
gymnastics team and said I should sign up for the upcoming season. In the halls of Barrington High School,
Gymnasts were known as Powder-Puffs, so I was hesitant. Billy lived on the edge. He was a regular visitor of both the
principal’s office and the smoking lounge.
Billy regularly encouraged me to take a walk on the wild side. Again, I was hesitant. Pat was a member of the wrestling team and he
also regularly encouraged me to sign up.
At Barrington, wrestlers were known as Pit-Lickers. Obviously, I was hesitant. Each day walking to gym class, I would pass
the smoking lounge with Billy trying to suck me into his world. The locker room on the left was for the
Powder-Puffs with Tom trying pull me in.
The locker room on the right was reserved for Pit-Lickers and there sat
Pat.
If I had
gone with Tom, where would I be today?
Can you spend your entire life in gymnastics? Is that even a thing? If I had gone with Billy, we all know how
that would have ended up.
You Maryland
wrestling fans may know Pat, and this is from the “it’s a small world”
department. Pat, the kid who ultimately
talked me into joining the Barrington High School Pit-Lickers, is Patrick
Connolly, the father of Jack Connolly who just finished an outstanding career
at Churchill capped off with an exciting state final victory over Chris
Sanchez.
Billy blew
his chance by showing up to my house one evening smelling straight up of weed. Mom answered the door and I was banned from
even talking to him on the bus. All the
Powder-Puffs had to do to snag me was to start having co-ed practices and co-ed
bus trips. Pat was the winner and I
became a Barrington Bronco wrestler and finally broke into the varsity line up
my senior year. I ended my average high
school career with a whopping 25 varsity wins.
I was far for an elite wrestler. I
also wasn’t quite floppy the goldfish but at that point in my life, wrestling had
entered my soul.
My college
selection, DePauw University, didn’t offer the major I really wanted, but they
recruited me to wrestle. I don’t think
it was my 25 high school wins that was the attraction and I’m quite sure it
wasn’t my high school class rank of 293.
I believe DePauw recruited me because the wrestling team needed warm bodies
to fill a depleted roster. This became
evident to me when I finally got there in the fall and met the team, all 8 of
them, all freshmen, just like me. I
figured they had classes I could pass, they had majors I could choose and they
had plenty of girls, but in the end, I chose DePauw University mostly because
wrestling was in my soul.
I finished
my college wrestling career with 70 wins while qualifying for the D3 Nationals
twice. It was a slightly above average college
wrestling career, far from being elite but a bit better than being Floppy the
Goldfish.
I moved to
Maryland in 1983 to work at the family business. I quickly found the local high school
wrestling room and started showing up to roll around with the team as a
volunteer. Maybe I should have spent
more time at work, but I couldn’t, I had wrestling in my soul.
In the early
90s, Mr. Ed Wildesen came into my store and ask if I would be interested in
coaching the Southern Mat Club youth wrestling team. I could have said no, I had two beautiful
young daughters at home and a business to run.
Of course, I couldn’t say no, I had wrestling in my soul. In the beginning, my Mom and Dad were less
than thrilled that this new adventure was taking me away from the family
business. Being in a gym instead of at
work did not sit well with them in the early years, but I persisted. I lost my Mom in 2005, just as the high
school program was taking off and I lost my Dad last year in the middle of our
perfect season. I wish they were here
today to see where this all ended up.
When Y2K
came around, Coach Kurt Lear ask me if I would be willing to take over the high
school program. I was hesitant. My girls were around middle school age and I
didn’t want to be that annoying Dad that his children avoided in the halls of
the high school. In the end, I accepted
Coach Lear’s offer. How could it have
gone any other way, I had wrestling in my soul.
When I
started at Southern, I never envisioned state rankings, state titles, the
parade of champions and certainly not the hall of fame. I started with two modest goals, fill the
lineup instead of forfeiting half our matches and figuring out how to beat
Northern Garrett. We lost to the Huskies
twice a year for 16 straight years and that had to end. We achieved both, and then some.
My first
year coaching at the high school was pretty much a dud. We finished the season at 3-11. We would have been 0-14 if Westmar and
Allegany had more than 8 kids between them.
I’m not gonna lie, I had thoughts that this coaching gig might not be
for me. I really could have been one and
done, but there wasn’t much chance of that, I had wrestling in my soul. Coach Clark and I went to the regional duals
that first year as spectators, sat shoulder to shoulder in a cramped gym. We watched Coach Slick of North Hagerstown
and Coach Stough of Northern lead their full squads into battle and I turned to
coach and said, “out there is where we need to be”. A few weeks later, again we sat shoulder to
shoulder in a cramped gym, this time at Western Maryland College. After our two state qualifiers were quickly
eliminated quickly, we sat and watched Gary Siler of Harford Tech tangle with
Guy Pritzer of Owings Mills. Once again,
I turned to Coach Clark and said, “out there is where we need to be, people out
there have wrestling in their souls”.
Over the
next 10 years, Coach Clark, Coach Rush, Coach Gregory, The Dad Squad and I
built the program and we reached the top.
In the five year span from 2007 to 2011, we won three state team titles,
placed 2nd twice placed 4th once and put 19 kids in the
state finals at Cole Fieldhouse. At the
end of the 2011 season, the Scheffels, Ozias’, Fitzwaters and Bennetts were
gone, the Dad Squad moved on and most people thought I was going retire and go
out on top. How could I do that, I had
wrestling in my soul.
Southern
Wrestling went through a few down years earlier this decade. We had some individual successes, but we
handed off the team dominance to Coach Lowe at Winters Mill, Coach Hamper at
South Carroll and Coach Shartner at Middletown.
It might have been a great time to step away from coaching. Maybe I had lost my edge, maybe it was time,
but how could I possible do that, I still had wrestling in my soul.
Over the
last couple years, we were back on top.
We won back to back state titles in 2018 and 2019. Little old 1A Southern Garrett beat the 4A
state champ from Urbana in 2018 and the 3A state champs Stephen Decatur in
2019. With a perfect 39-0 record last
season and a 50+ match win streak intact, you would think it would be a perfect
time to retire. But here I am, preparing
for the upcoming season and a run at a third straight title. Seems I still have wrestling in my soul.
People ask
me all the time. What is the secret to
your success? I tell them, it’s
simple. I have wrestling in my
soul. They usually laugh and say “no
really, how do you do it?” Some say “you
must teach some amazing technique”. Not
really that. You could watch an old
youtube video of a wrestling match from the 70s and see everything I
teach. Singles, Doubles, Firemans…
Standups, Sitouts and Switches… Halfs, Armbars and Cradles… Sprawls, Front Headlocks… That’s about it, the polar opposite of
“cutting edge”. Some say “you must grow
great athletes up there in the mountains”.
Nothing special up on the mountain, I believe every school has great
athletes, we are just able to get them out of the halls, into our wrestling
room and then lead them to do great things.
I believe
there are a couple “secrets to our success”.
First, we have created a caring atmosphere of love and compassion. We encourage our wrestlers to look beyond
their own wins and losses and spend each day working for each other. We constantly ask our kids, “what have you
done for your team today?”. They have
bought into our philosophy and success has followed. The kids on our team want to succeed, not
only for themselves and their families, but the want to succeed for our team,
for our school, for our community, for their teammates and for the coaching
staff.
Every day I
say “I love you boys”. Every day, during
stretching and warm up, I make a point to have a conversation with every
wrestler. “how did the math test
go?” “Did you watch the game last
night?” “How’s did your mom’s surgery go?” “Did your dad get that job?” Simple stuff,
but it lets each kid know they are something, more than just a warm body. We also take a little break between drilling
and live wrestling for “story time”. I
open the floor to anyone who wants to talk about anything. The coaches and I usually turn their story
about what happened in the lunch room that afternoon into something they might
benefit from in the future. Like, “it
might have been funny to see that kid’s face with jello up his nose, but don’t
you all think that might be considered bullying??” We have heard some doozies. I also regularly hug all the boys and I pray
with them. That’s about as “cutting
edge” as I get. So far, I have not
gotten in any trouble for that, but this world is kinda crazy.
The other
factor I believe is very important in building our team is that all the coaches
treat all the wrestlers equally. The
elite wrestler and Floppy the Goldfish get the same amount of instruction, the
same amount of mat time, the same amount of one on one time and the same amount
of attention. At some point, we will
need Floppy to enter the line up to help us win a big match. I know as much about a kid who might never
wrestle a varsity match as I know about a kid who enters the 100 win club. Every year there are success stories that
happen to kids who might never get a chance on a team that focuses only on the
elites. Whatever the reason, I am
thankful to have been given the opportunity to serve.
Again, I am
honored to be here. Thanks again to the
hall of fame committee for considering me worthy of this distinction. Thanks to all my people who drove off the
mountain to be here with me today and thanks to all of you for listening to my
story in a speech that might have slightly exceeded my five minute
allotment
.
Thanks, Coach Taylor
