Casey Taylor accepts football head-coaching job at alma mater Oak Ridge High School
It’s time to touch up the tattoo.
As a high school senior at Oak Ridge High School in 1988, Taylor couldn’t resist the temptation to get a tattoo of a school-tradition axe on his right calf, to signify his love and loyalty to the Trojans. It’s faded over time but the significance means more now than ever.
Taylor, one of this region’s most accomplished football coaches, accepted the head-coaching post at Oak Ridge on Tuesday.
Oak Ridge is a marquee football program in the Sacramento area. Taylor replaces longtime rival and coaching friend Eric Cavaliere, who steered 12 playoff teams in his 14 seasons as the head man in El Dorado Hills before stepping down earlier this spring. Coaching has become a year-round grind. There were few breaks during a rushed and chaotic spring COVID-19 season, and it has led to an stunning amount of coaching turnover this spring.
Cavaliere will remain in the program, giving the Trojans a powerhouse 1-2 coaching punch in a Sierra Foothill League that has towered in the Sac-Joaquin Section for years.
Taylor, 50, got his coaching start at Oak Ridge in his early 20s and landed his first head-coaching gig at storied Del Oro, elevating a strong program into a state-ranked heavyweight. There, he won six section championships and took four teams to state finals, winning one in 2015 and nearly repeating in 2016.
Craving new challenges, Taylor left Del Oro and accepted the Capital Christian coaching post before the 2017 season. In three seasons, the Cougars won three league championships and a section Division III crown. Taylor signed a 10-year deal with Capital Christian but was among more than 20 campus layoffs last spring as the pandemic shuttered schools.
Just over a year ago, Taylor was hired at Inderkum, replacing 230-win coach Terry Stark, who took a year off to tend to a son who required surgeries after taking a hard fall. Taylor coached Inderkum this shortened spring season. Stark has not indicated if he wants to return to Inderkum as head coach.
Saying goodbye to his Inderkum players was not easy, Taylor said Tuesday, making for a mixed day.
”That’s always the hardest part — saying goodbye,” Taylor said. “But I’m excited. I’m coming full circle. I played high school sports at Oak Ridge and had my coaching start there. I have so much respect for all the coaches who were there before me. I feel honored and blessed to lead a program at a school that has always meant so much to me.”
Said Oak Ridge athletic director Steve White, “He’s coming back to his roots at Oak Ridge. He’s obviously a great football coach and has done well whereever he’s been. It’s a cool story: coming back to home town, where he grew up, back to a program that helped define him as a young man, and now he can help our student-athletes.”
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 1:43 PM.