CLASS 5A BOYS ‘Johnny Basketball’ digs in

By Marty Cook

Posted: November 8, 2009 at 5:51 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — At a glance NAME Johnny Taylor SCHOOL Siloam Springs POSITION Coach AGE 31 RECORD 199-53 NOTEWORTHY Led Rose Bud to an undefeated season and the Class 3A state championship in 2008. ... Won a Class 1A state title in 2003 at Weiner. ... Was 87-13 as Rose Bud’s boys coach.

Jason McMahan remembers meeting Johnny Taylor in the summer of 2008.

Both were members of the coaching staff for the West basketball team at the Arkansas High School Coaches Association All-Star Game. There was an instant connection between the two coaching junkies.

“We were up to 4 a.m. every night,” said McMahan, then at Siloam Springs. “Everybody was getting annoyed with us. We just stayed up talking basketball: ‘Look at this inbound play.’ We both just love basketball.”

Taylor, 31, had led Rose Bud to an undefeated Class 3A state championship that year. McMahan, 32, won a Class 5A title the same year with the Panthers.

After McMahan left this past off-season for Bentonville, thePanthers hired Taylor to replace him. McMahan’s glowing appraisal of Siloam Springs’ program helped Taylor make the difficult decision to leave Rose Bud.

“He never said a bad word about it,” said Taylor, who also won a Class 1A title in 2003 at Weiner. “It was how positive he was about the situation.”

Taylor is excited about the opportunity in Siloam Springs, even though the Panthers returnjust one starter from last year’s team. After winning the title in 2008, Siloam Springs reached the semifinals last year.

If the Panthers struggle this year, it won’t be from a lack of organization or preparation, two things Taylor has become well known for during his coaching career. Taylor gives each of his players a notebook with detailed charts on the team’s offensive and defensive sets.

His all-out approach to the game has earned Taylor the appropriate nickname of Johnny Basketball.

“A lot of coaches call me that because I spend so much time with it,” Taylor said. “The kids have really taken to that. They enjoy the organization we’ve brought. It helped the learning curve within a couple of weeks.”

Taylor picked up his approachto coaching from former Hendix Coach Cliff Garrison, for whom Taylor played guard in the 1990s. Garrison told Taylor if he didn’t always keep learning the game he was through, and Taylor has followed through on that advice.

In the 2008 state championship games, Rose Bud played the game immediately after Siloam Springs’ victory. The Panthers played a 3-2 zone in the gameand McMahan said that Taylor, a man-to-man advocate, incorporated that defense after watching the game.

“He’s one of the best learners I’ve ever known,” McMahan said. “You talk and he listens. You have to be careful or he’ll empty you out.”

Taylor’s love of the game started early in life. When his older sister started playing pee-wee basketball in fourth grade Taylor, then in the second grade, wanted to play, too.

His truck-driving father put up a basketball goal in the garage, and Taylor wore it out playing.

“I could practice if it was raining, cold or snowing,” Taylor said. “I was non-stop.”

Taylor still is non-stop, and he brings his family along for the ride. He and his wife have twosons, Layne and Press, named after former college coach Press Maravich, better known as Pete Maravich’s father.

Taylor gave 4-year-old Layne a dry-erase board so he can draw along with dad on the sideline. McMahan said he recently visited Taylor’s house and was sitting around the living room discussing zone defenses.

“Layne came over and said, ‘Coach Mac, let me show you a press offense,’ ” McMahan said. “It was just circles and lines, but it was funny.

“Crazy, isn’t it ?”

Special, Pages 85 on 11/08/2009

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