Trooper Taylor Article

[autigeremt 7,543]

There's an article on ITAT that's a MUST READ if you have a subscription. I wish I could share it on here, because it's AUSOME! Go read it if you can.

[idrivefast 0]

this is when someone should BREAK THE RULES lol...jk.

[au2004ece 30]

Trooper Taylor speaks

Hey everyone. Trooper Taylor, one of the Tigers' assistant coaches, spent 35 minutes speaking about a variety of topics. Here is an overview of the most intriguing things I heard.

NEW @ 4:45 p.m. On recruiting: "I like the ones that my wife can pick out. That's pretty good, you know, when she can put the tape on and say, 'Sign him, baby.' We're good."

On how difficult recruiting was: "I used to have an afro."

On DeAngelo Benton: "You don't go to bed a circle and wake up a square. If you can play ball, you can play ball."

He said Benton is fully qualified and will report to campus this summer.

He said Curtis Luper is the team's recruiting coordinator.

He said as assistant head coach, he handles team matters when head coach Gene Chizik is away. Taylor indicated that Chizik already has brought in outside experts to help Taylor (and perhaps other coaches) with their leadership and interview skills. Not media interviews. I think he meant job interviews.

He said Chizik, who projects an all-business aura, isn't duplicitous. He really is all-business, even behind closed doors.

He apparently turned down other offers, including a coordinator job, to work at Auburn. His primary Auburn contact was fellow assistant Curtis Luper, who already knew Chizik from his days at Stephen F. Austin. Luper warmed Taylor to the Auburn idea and Chizik took it from there.

He wants to be a head coach within five years.

He doesn't seem real geeked about recruits who wait until after NSD to make a decision. He's OK with the general concept, but clarified his position with an anecdote. Taylor said each player is the CEO of his own career and has vice presidents (ie family members or school/athletic contacts) who help. Once "other members of the board get in there," the situation can get murky.

Asked to assess his current players, Taylor's first dose of praise went to Montez Billings.

He seemed unsure about what to expect from PPL ... and when.

posted by Jay G. Tate at 2:43 PM 42 Comments

http://jaygtate.blogspot.com/

[autigeremt 7,543]

Not even close to the ITAT article, but enjoyable none the less.

[quietfan 233]

How about this from Woodbery/al.com:

http://blog.al.com/auburnbeat/2009/02/troo...leaning_la.html

Why did Taylor come to the Plains? He had a good experience on his interview.

Let's cue up the soon-to-be-famous Cleaning Lady Anecdote: "As Gene (Chizik) was showing me around the athletic facility, there was a cleaning lady who came out of the room upstairs, and she came right up to him and hugged him and said, 'I haven't seen you for four or five years. How are the kids?'

"She named both his twins and his little boy, named Jonna (Chizik's wife). And to me, that told me something. He could have coached Jay (Jacobs) up on what to say. He could have coached coach (Joe) Whitt up on what to say. But for that cleaning lady to come up out of that room and take her time out and say hello and hug his neck and know his family, I knew that he treated her right when he was here. And if you treat the cleaning lady right, the rest of us have a chance.

"So on the way to the airport, I texted my wife, and she said, 'what do you think?' And I said, "The cleaning lady made the difference,' and I put a bunch of question marks. So she (texted) back, 'What does that mean?' And I said, 'We'll talk about it when we get home.'

"Then (in Stillwater) I told her that exact story, and I just felt good about it. It's like recruiting. If you get a gut feeling about that place, you go with that. We never talked money one time. And I can promise you it wasn't the highest-paid offer that I had to take. But it was the right place for the right reasons, and I really feel good about it."

Meanwhile, from the other side of the state, we hear stories/allegations of a head coach too aloof to be approached by underlings...too "focused" to greet in the hall without getting chewed out...

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Im glad he saw the culture auburn has and wants to be a part of it. I really couldnt be happier with pieces Chizik has surrounded himself with.

[autigeremt 7,543]

That was the AUSOME that I was talking about! A proud moment for the family!