With memories in tow, Sacramento State coach leads Hornets to Cal, his alma mater
.jpg "Sac State head coach Troy Taylor celebrates winning the Big Sky Conference after the Hornets won the 66th Causeway Classic against UC Davis on November 23, 2019. The first-year football coachâs name has come up with other college openings. He is focused on leading the Hornets to their first FCS playoff against Austin Peay with plans to stay.")
The jaw still makes sounds, like the sounds of running a card across bicycle spokes.
Troy Taylor proved it after practice Wednesday, moving his mouth just slightly as lasting proof that he left his soul, teeth and bits of jaw fragments to the Cal Golden Bears. Now the third-year Sacramento State head football coach, Taylor returns to Berkeley on Saturday for a 1 p.m. kickoff, his 1-1 team ready for a win-hungry 0-2 Bears bunch.
Taylor reminds his players that this sport can be rewarding, if everyone remains united, and it can knock you for a loop.
He knows. He recalled a crunching moment of his playing career, of messages received and lasting resolve. It was at the end of his freshman season at Cal in 1986. Taylor soared from low on the depth chart in summer camp to sudden midseason starter for coach Joe Kapp, who saw some of the same grit in Taylor that he had when he quarterbacked Cal a generation earlier.
Facing USC on the road, Taylor dropped back to pass and was blasted by a forearm to the chops. He is quick to remind the pass was complete for a 42-yard gain, but he was decked. He saw stars and heard his old man’s lessons of toughness and never showing an ounce of weakness.
“”My dad always said, ‘Don’t you ever lay on the football field — ever! — and I’m down,” Taylor recalled with a laugh. “I get up. I knew something was not right. I run off, and you always know the reaction by the eyes and expressions of everyone looking at you — Oh my gawd! — blood everywhere. It was bad. Busted it, dislocated.”
Taylor paused, hand across his jaw, and added, “But it really didn’t hurt.” What hurt more was losing games. Taylor was pained by defeat, and still is, but it no longer consumes him to the point of depression.
Taylor entered Cal as a heralded prospect, the Northern California and Bee Player of the Year out of Cordova High School, lanky at 6-foot-4, accurate, athletic, bright and driven. He chose the Bears because he wanted to become a college starter and to lead the Bears to the Rose Bowl.
“I accomplished one of those, and Cal hasn’t accomplished the other since,” Taylor said. “But I had a fun time at Cal. It wasn’t always easy, but I enjoyed it.”
Taylor can laugh at all of it now because it wasn’t so funny then.
“I remember I brought my high school cleats to Cal, because I loved them, and I asked an equipment guy if he could paint them black so I could use them — ‘I’m undefeated in these cleats!’” Taylor said. “The guy says, ‘Well, don’t put ‘em on here!’ Those cleats wound up taking losses.”
Taylor started four seasons at Cal and set a bounty of career passing records, many of them broken by Jared Goff. Cal didn’t win much, but Taylor won the respect of his teammates, who voted him team MVP his final three seasons. Taylor’s name still carries weight at Cal. Old Blues still love him.
“I hope they give him a rousing reception,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox told Bay Area media this week of Cal fans. “I know Troy well. Got a ton of respect for him. He had an unbelievable career here. He’s a fantastic coach, and I’ve know that for a long time.”
Back to that busted jaw: Taylor’s mouth was wired shut for eight weeks, a sobering blow for a guy who didn’t like to miss a meal at 172 pounds.
“It was late in the season, near Thanksgiving, and my mom, bless her heart, said, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine!’” Taylor said. “She got baby bottles and blended up turkey dinner. Happy Thanksgiving! Yams blended. Oh yeah, it was great!”
Drive from dad, compassion from mom
From his parents, Taylor received the balance that shaped him and still that sustains him. He got his work ethic from his father Bob, a demanding carpenter who barked orders as fast as he could drive nails. His idea of a practical Christmas gift to young Troy was a utility belt, steel-toed boots or a tool box.
Taylor’s father would remind in various shades of reddish facial hue and raised volume when asked about some sort of cash incentive to pound nails, “Yeah, you get paid! Know that roof over your head? You know that food that you eat? That’s your payment!”
Taylor got his compassion and ability to see the best in people from his mother, Roberta, a grocery clerk on her feet all day who made people’s day by smiling and talking to them. She still attends her son’s games, beaming. Bob died 10 years ago. To Mom, young Troy never had a bad day in sports. If he went hitless in a Little League game, Roberta remembered that he put three balls in play, never mind the outs.
“That’s the balance I had from my parents,” Taylor said.
Taylor knew as a boy that football and coaching would be his life. He had a cup of coffee in the NFL with the New York Jets as a fourth-round pick in 1990. He coached receivers at Colorado in 1995 and was on Cal’s football staff from 1996-2000, but he longed for stability and to start a family with wife Tracy.
“I never thought I’d coach in college again, and I wanted to build a high school power,” Taylor said.
Taylor and co-coach Kris Richardson (now his assistant head coach at Sac State) built Folsom High into a state-wide powerhouse, winning championships, setting passing marks with the spread offense and sending boatloads of kids to the college ranks via scholarships.
Taylor craved new challenges and spent a season as co-offensive coordinator at Eastern Washington of the Big Sky Conference, setting more records along the way, and he was the offensive coordinator at Utah of the Pac-12 in 2017 and ‘18.
Sac State signed Taylor to a seven-year deak before the 2019 season, and he promptly produced the program’s first Big Sky championship in earning national Coach of the Year honors.
“We’re lucky to have Troy,” said Sac State athletic director Mark Orr, a Sacramento native who also played at Cal. “We’ll go to Cal this weekend and they’ll have a training table for me since I spent so much time there as a player, and Troy will get an applause. He was great there.”
‘I’d almost get physically ill from a loss’
Orr said for all of Taylor’s exterior calm, the man burns to compete inside. But Taylor doesn’t let competition burn him out any more. Losses at Cal led Taylor to lose sleep. He always expected better. As a high school coach, Taylor agonized over setbacks. Coaches mature. Taylor has. His message resonates to players. You can’t win them all. He will hug plays, every one of them, after a loss, including Saturday’s effort to Northern Iowa. After wins? They don’t need more kudos. They earned it on the field.
“I’ve learned how to move on from losses and not be so results oriented,” Taylor said. “All those years at Folsom, I’d almost get physically ill from a loss, for months. It drove me to figure out how to win, how to be better. I had to figure it out how to deal with it or there’s no way I could keep doing this.”
He continued, “I have to keep things in perspective because my players are going to be looking at me after losses. We talk a lot about being mindful, being thankful, and how to move on from games. That’s the challenge. That’s where the leadership is, right? You’ve got to be the same guy. It’s easy to be a leader when everything is going right. That’s not hard. But when things start to fall apart, that’s when guys need you the most. I believe that hope dictates effort. Think about it. When I feel good about myself, I’m a better person. I’m more giving. I’m more tolerant. For me, that’s the key for not going in a hole or being down for four months after a loss.”