Oak Ridge coach Casey Taylor earns 200th win in Sierra Foothill shootout against Del Oro
In the winter months of 2002, Casey Taylor bounded into the administrative offices of Del Oro High School, packing a football and wearing a suit and all manner of cool confidence.
He wanted this varsity head coaching position, and he was going to pour himself into this interview, even if it meant hitting a blocking sled or jumping on tables to make a point. The interview panel was heavy on football-minded people, including then-Del Oro principal Dan Gayaldo, former Del Oro co-coach John Fletcher and then-DO defensive coordinator Jeff Tooker, now the superintendent of the Placer Union High School District.
“Casey gets on the chalk board to diagram plays, and he’s so into it, he sweats right through his shirt and coat,” said Gayaldo, who is now retired from school administration but was on site Friday night in Loomis where Taylor closed in on a monstrous milestone moment. “We wondered if we wanted to hire an assistant from Rocklin High, but we walked out of that meeting, and Fletcher says, ‘This guy is really good!’ Yeah, no kidding!’”
Taylor never stopped making points, never stopped shooting for the moon, and he never stopped winning. He won his 200th game Friday, but incredibly enough, he did so in his third season coaching his alma mater, Bee No. 3-ranked Oak Ridge, which delivered a 42-35 triumph of host and No. 6 Del Oro on Friday night in a typical Sierra Foothill League thriller.
Taylor won 149 games over 15 mostly magical seasons at Del Oro, including six CIF Sac-Joaquin Section banners, four trips to a CIF state final and a championship in 2015. He left Loomis for more challenges, winning a section title at Capital Christian and eventually landing in El Dorado Hills, where he first played the sport and got his coaching start.
Never in his wildest imagination did Taylor think he’d get to 200, or that he’d do it against Del Oro — on the Golden Eagles’ homecoming night, no less — in front of another tremendous Del Oro crowd. It’s storybook stuff for a storybook career that has a lot of pages and chapters left to go. Taylor certainly cemented his reputation as one of this section’s greatest coaches, and he craves what his team wants: more championships.
Oak Ridge won a string of section Division II banners in the 2000s under head coach Chris Jones and took the D-I title in 2019 under longtime coach Eric Cavaliere, who is still involved in the program. Oak Ridge quarterback alums Ian Book, now with the New England Patriots, and Justin Lamson, The Bee’s 2019 Player of the Year now at Stanford, attended Friday’s game. Across the field, Taylor’s 2015 state-winning quarterback Stone Smartt was on hand. He is now a tight end for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Oak Ridge received a career night from quarterback Joaquin Graves-Mercado, who had four touchdown passes, including deep-ball strikes of 47 yards to Jasen Womack and 70 and 32 yards to Jadon Anderson.
Womack, a fast-emerging sophomore running back and defender, put Oak Ridge ahead to stay with a 57-yard breakaway touchdown run for a 42-35 advantage with 3:35 left to play as the Trojans held off the remarkable and relentless Caden Pinnick, the cousin of Smartt.
Pinnick, a senior quarterback who was named 2022 SFL Player of the Year, tossed five touchdown passes, and he was so impressive that nearly every Oak Ridge coach tracked him down to compliment him on his effort after it was over.
Before that, scores of coaches and players closed in on Taylor as the final seconds ran off the clock. He was doused with water, like winning a championship, and he shook hands and hugged players as if he were running for office.
Taylor said he didn’t even realize he was closing in on the big 200 until recently. He wanted to get it last week at top-ranked Folsom, certainly, but a 14-all game in the fourth quarter became a 42-21 Folsom victory. But this could not have been more oddly fitting or sweeter.
“I remember thinking when I was interviewing here, ‘You can not hire me and get beat the next 10 years while I’m at Rocklin,’ or you can hire me and we can take it to a higher level,” Taylor said. “I appreciate those men taking a chance on me. I got lucky to get in here at the right time with the right people, and we wanted to keep winning and keep tradition alive. I felt I needed to put a stamp on it here and build it up. I’ve had a lot of great players, a lot of great coaches to work with.”
Taylor said the extra thrill is having his son to share this moment and season with. Jackson Taylor is a junior tight end, linebacker and special teams player, who, as a Del Oro ball boy years ago, used to race onto the field to retrieve the kicking tee with his dad timing him with a stopwatch, of course.
Mike Kravich, a Bee All-Metro defensive grinder for Jesuit in the mid 1990s, has coached with Taylor at Del Oro, Capital Christian and Oak Ridge and said he is more than just a coach.
“I love Casey,” Kravich said. “He’s a relationship guy. He takes care of his players and his coaches, and we take care of him.”
Former Oak Ridge All-Metro quarterback Marco Baldacchino is an assistant coach with Oak Ridge who has coached up Graves-Mercado. The kid passed with flying colors on Friday.
“He made some great players,” Baldacchino said. “He’s improving every week. We told him that if we’re going to win a section championship, we’re going to have to be able to go vertical. We can.”
On Taylor winning his 200th, Baldacchino said: “What a great win. I always had a ton of respect for coach Taylor. He’s an unbelievable coach and an even better person.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2023 at 12:07 AM.