OKLAHOMA CITY (Feb. 22, 2015) – Jason Taylor didn't necessarily know it at the time, but he was being indoctrinated with the Oklahoma Christian basketball system from an early age.
The lessons he learned from his high school coach – a former assistant to OC coach
Dan Hays – paid huge dividends when Taylor arrived on the OC campus in 2005. The 6-foot-7 Taylor was a ready-made post prospect for the Eagles and developed into one of the program's greatest all-around players, one who will be inducted into the OC Athletic Hall of Fame on Monday with six other former Eagle greats.
"When I got the call from coach Hays (about the Hall of Fame), it was a flashback," Taylor said. "It seems like yesterday we were at nationals. It's been five years since I graduated but it doesn't seem like more than a couple of weeks."
Taylor grew up in Edmond and attended Edmond North High School. His coach with the Huskies was Ralph Nigro, who has worked with Hays as an assistant at both Northwestern Oklahoma State and OC as well as in the ultra-successful OC Cage Camps during the summer.
Nigro, himself a successful coach who has spent time as a head coach at both the college and high school levels, shares a lot of the same philosophies as Hays. Taylor said the way Nigro ran his program at Edmond North gave him a good foundation to deal with what he eventually would face in college.
"I attribute a lot of my success to coach Nigro," Taylor said. "The way he prepared us in practice and prepared the team from a coaching standpoint, I felt very prepared mentally for the college game. We ran the five-out offense in high school and I learned to play the wing and make good cuts, make those guard-type movements and bring the ball up. I was comfortable with that."
When it came time to select a college, the relationships Taylor had formed through the years with Hays and his then-assistant (and now OC's athletic director)
Curtis Janz pulled Taylor across Edmond to OC.
"It was a no-brainer from the standpoint that I knew coach Hays and coach Janz. I formed a trust relationship with them. They had my best interest at heart. It wasn't just about sports. They were going to help mature me as a man, spiritually and emotionally and help me get my degree. It was close to home, which was nice. Walking the campus, it felt like home."
Hays said Taylor's "character, work ethic and personality were perfect for us" and made it clear to the coach that Taylor would be successful in college, but Taylor would have to wait to play, as OC had a senior-laden squad for the 2005-06 season.
Taylor redshirted, then came off the bench as a freshman in 2006-07, averaging 7.9 points and 4.7 rebounds and giving glimpses of what was to come, despite missing close to half the season with a knee injury – something that Hays believes cost that team a potential trip to the NAIA Division I tournament.
"We knew what we had," Hays said. "We didn't know he was going to be a first-team All-American, but we knew he was going to be a really good player … and he just kept getting better and better."
He started all 30 games as a sophomore in 2007-08, averaging 19.1 points (tops in the Sooner Athletic Conference) and 8.1 rebounds (third in the SAC), and despite the Eagles' 13-17 record, he still was named to the first-team All-SAC and third-team NAIA All-America lists.
Still, the best was yet to come. As a junior, he averaged 23.5 points and 8.4 rebounds to earn SAC player of the year honors. The Eagles went 23-10 and reached the NAIA tournament, with Taylor being named a first-team All-American.
His scoring dipped a bit as a senior, to 18.6 points per game, but his rebounding improved to 9.6 per game. He was denied the SAC's top honor but did make the first-team All-SAC and All-America lists, making him OC's first three-time basketball All-America selection. (Taylor's successor as OC's primary post player, Will Reinke, later matched that impressive feat.)
"When you consider the total career, Jason is our most decorated player since I've been here," said Hays, who arrived at OC in 1983.
The Eagles beat Louisiana State-Shreveport in the first round of the 2010 NAIA tournament before falling to Lee (Tenn.) in the second round to cap another 23-10 season. Taylor ended his career at No. 3 on OC's scoring list with 2,051 points and in the top 10 in career rebounding.
"He was a unique player," said Devan White, who spent two seasons as Taylor's teammate before going on to become one of the leaders of future OC squads. "However you want it, he could give it to you. He could shoot the 3. He could put it on the floor and get to the goal. He had a great back-to-the-basket game.
"He was a great defender. He was very underestimated on the defensive end. He never left his feet on pump fakes. He was real disciplined. He boarded well. He was really an All-American when it came to basketball. He was really that great of a player."
Taylor credited Hays for continually pushing him improve and his teammates for his on-court success.
"He made us not be stagnant and not settle," Taylor said. "After that last game each season, we'd meet with him to talk about what we needed to work on. He would never let us get complacent. He wanted us to develop and make sure we were on the same page.
"Those numbers are a testament to my teammates. Those are the guys who set me up for the shots I had, and the coaches put us in the right positions to be successful. It wasn't about me. It was about the team."
White said Taylor's team-first attitude rubbed off on him and other teammates.
"Jason was somebody who embraced me and took me under his wing when I first stepped on campus," White said. "From then, I felt like he was a big brother to me. I've always looked up to him, especially when it came to the leadership role. A lot of the things that I've done as a leader I learned from him. He was one of those guys that I really looked up to."
After graduating from OC with a finance degree, Taylor landed a job at Chesapeake Energy Corp. in the Oklahoma City company's accounting department. He's since moved to Olathe, Kan., where he now works in the accounting department for Garmin International Inc. He and his wife Jordan – who he met at OC – have two young children.
Taylor still keeps up with the Eagles and tries to watch their games online "when I can. I love the Nest. When I go back in the Nest, I get all those memories. It's awesome that coach Hays is still there. There is a tie from day one when he got there to the current-day players. If I ever go back, he'll have me in the locker room talking to the guys. It's a
Dan Hays-type brotherhood. Most programs aren't like that."