Longtime Onekama football coach Jim Taylor gives
instructions during a junior varsity practice on Monday. (Dylan
Savela/News Advocate)
Jim Taylor assumes a tried and true position.
Hands on his knees and eyes on the developing play, the
76-year-old, in a brief spell of silence, absorbs another moment in
another Monday practice.
Onekama helmets collide, arms entangle, and blue
body-sized pads absorb the blow of an offensive line firing off the worn
and dirtied grass.
The spark of chaos ceases almost as quickly as it
started.
Now it’s Taylor’s turn.
In that time, he saw it all: each block, each cut, the
fluidity of the handoff, what went wrong and what went right.
The pieces of the play remain where they landed, eyes
affixed and trust directed to Taylor as he makes his rounds.
And at each stop, he rests an arm around the shoulder
pads of the player, minces few words as he makes his point, and then
delivers a firm tap to the top of their gold helmet.
This is the official Portager stamp of approval. It
always has been. It’s also one of encouragement.
Taylor started Onekama football in 1964, and is currently
in his 50th year of coaching the sport all together.
Xs and Os fire off as naturally as electrons in his
brain, but the key to Taylor’s longevity is his knack for believing in
his players, even if he has to be the first.
AN ARBITRARY NUMBER
Taylor said he feels like he’s been in football for a
long time. Counting the exact years, however, isn’t high on his list of
priorities.
“There’s been so many of them, I can’t keep track. But
I’ve heard that rumor (about the 50th year), yeah,” he said. “I started
coaching at a young age, and followed it through. You don’t look
forward, the years just keep creeping by. God knows, you never know
you’ll even live this long. You just keep doing it. You don’t give it a
thought.”
His passion however, never waned.
“I guess I sometimes wonder how I’ve been going this
long, but people tell me I’m a football junkie. I guess I just might
be,” he said. “But it’s been really good to me. There’s not much money
out there in it, but it’s been great to my life.”
Taylor, who was Onekama’s head varsity coach for the
program’s first 25 years, has been coaching the middle school Portagers
for the past several seasons. After just a pair of games this year,
however, low numbers bit surrounding opponents and the season collapsed.
Taylor was welcomed with open arms to help coach the junior varsity team
for the remainder of the schedule.
And so goes Taylor’s life with football. The sport always
beckons him back.
FROM THE GROUND UP
After graduating from Central Michigan University, Taylor
spent brief stints coaching at Jackson Lumen Christi (which was then
Jackson St. John’s) and at Mount Pleasant.
Friend and CMU classmate Carl Foster talked Taylor into
traveling north to teach at Onekama, as well as start its first football
program. The two, and later with Jim Anderson, did just that.
“I was one of them guys who liked to hunt and fish,”
Taylor said, eluding to the area, “so it really worked out good.”
And as it turned out, the area benefited from Taylor’s
presence too.
The 1964 season started with a bump and then a bang.
With no football equipment to speak of at the school,
Taylor had to sift through used and smaller-sized gear of CMU’s to
provide to his first players. They had enough practice jerseys to go
around, but there was a problem.
“We had practice jerseys, but we needed numbers,” he
explained, “so we got old basketball jerseys to put over the top.”
Then, Taylor’s favorite memory came first. In Onekama’s
inaugural game, which turned out to be a 25-13 win over rival Brethren
at Manistee’s field, Tim Werle returned the opening kick 88 yards for a
touchdown, basketball jersey and all.
“Since our opening kickoff against Brethren, when Werle
ran it back 88 yards, it’s been nothing but great memories for me,”
Taylor said. “We had a great time developing a program and it actually
was half-way decent for a number of years.”
MORE NUMBERS
Taylor’s term, “half-way decent,” doesn’t do his actual
success justice.
In 25 years as the Portagers’ head coach, Onekama went
118-67-3, including a 60-19-1 record in the 1970s.
Taylor stepped down after the 1988 season, but again was
sucked back in.
“I was 25 years a head coach up here, and I thought it
was maybe time to get away from it,” Taylor recalled. “It really didn’t
work out that way.”
Then-Frankfort coach Tim Kline talked Taylor into joining
him as an assistant for the Panthers.
“I wasn’t sure I could be an assistant coach, but Kline
and I were pretty good buddies and he talked me into doing it,” Taylor
said. “I found out quickly that it’s pretty easy to be an assistant
coach.
“When things go wrong, all you’ve got to do is kinda look
down, and shake your head,” he added with a laugh. “Just back away from
the sidelines.”
Things didn’t go wrong very often, as the tandem couldn’t
have done a better job in four seasons by winning two state
championships and finishing second twice.
Kline then took a job coaching Roscommon, and Taylor
followed. The two spent three seasons there before returning to Taylor’s
true home, Onekama, to help coach Jim Hunter continue the tradition
Taylor started.
BACK HOME
Hunter, who himself has coached 36 years of football and
is currently in his 23rd at the helm of Onekama, still learns from his
predecessor.
“I can’t put into words how much Coach Taylor has meant
to me as a mentor, and a coach, and actually by mentoring me as one of
my assistant coaches,” he said. “I pick something up from him every
single day, and people like that are special.
“It’s not just football, either. It’s how to deal with
kids, how to handle parents and how to express to them how important
their kids are to you. A lot of stuff I still do are things he helped
point me to.
“I think the world of the guy and I wish I could be more
eloquent about it than I am.”
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Hunter had Taylor assisting him on the sidelines from
1997-2008, during which time Onekama had to play its home games on
Saturday due to a lack of lighting at its field.
The lights were a bitter-sweet addition in 2009, because
Taylor, forever a family man, had been traveling down state to watch his
grandsons play on Friday nights. He had to leave the varsity Portagers
to continue to do so.
“That was one of the reasons I was never a strong
advocate for the lights,” Hunter said, “just because I knew I’d lose
him.”
It didn’t last long.
Taylor was willing to move down to help coach at the
middle school level, which was a better fit in his family’s schedule,
and continued to do so up until this year.
Now with the JV team, Taylor has been hinting at hanging
it up for good.
“I guess we’re phasing out,” he said. “I don’t know if
I’ll spend the rest of my time in Florida and come up here for a couple
months or vice versa, but times change.
“It’s tough. But, the (Michigan High School Football
Coaches Association) is opening up a mentoring program, and I don’t
know, I might think about entering that,” he said of the group that
inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1988. “I’m not looking for the end
of the trail yet. Bear Bryant only lasted a month after he retired, and
I said a long time ago I wasn’t going that direction.”
LASTING IMPRESSION
High school sports have a pretty strict ebb and flow.
Four years are all a player has with the team and its
coach. What’s kept Taylor on the sidelines for 50 of them is the chance
to witness change during those four-year increments.
“It just keeps me young, I guess,” he said. “That’s my
big thrill. There’s so many games — and basically a game is a game — but
what you really like to see is that kid come along, have success, and
get better.
“They may not realize at the time, but playing the game
should just be one of the tremendous times in their life.”
Hunter believes in Taylor’s reason for coaching.
“He’ll get them to do things they didn’t think they could
do, and he’ll get all his kids to buy into a team concept, which is
really what all this is about,” he said of Taylor. “It’s about what
these kids take away from their time here, and he’s always understood
that.
“I know when he was a young guy, he was probably running
around, chewing tobacco at a time when it was accepted, swinging his
foot, and I’m sure maybe dropping a rough word here and there,” Hunter
added, “but now it’s almost like he has this grandfather thing going.
“What it comes down to, in a nutshell, is he gets them to
understand that he believes they can do it, and it’s almost like his
players desperately don’t want to disappoint him.”
All Taylor asks is that his players aren’t disappointed
with the time they spent with him.
“There’s never been a day when I’m not excited to go to
practice,” he said. “I’m sure the kids might think ‘man oh man, that’s a
grumpy ol’ guy,’ but I still like working with them and hopefully they
don’t consider me over the hill yet.
“I guess I’ve just been able to touch the right nerve, at
least I hope. And I hope whenever they get back together with each
other, they look back on some great times through this game.”
BANQUETS AND KICKOFFS
Jerry Brown was the quarterback of one of Taylor’s most
successful Onekama squads.
In his senior year, 1976-77, the Portagers went 8-0 with
Brown under center and Taylor at the helm.
Now an assistant coach for Onekama track and field, Brown
recalls being honored to announce Taylor during a 25-year anniversary
banquet held by the school in 1988.
“It was kind of a big affair banquet that honored all
three coaches (Taylor, Foster, and Anderson),” Brown explained, “and I
announced coach Jim Taylor to receive his ring and plaque. Not even
realizing it until afterward, I called him Jim Anderson.
“I’m telling you, if I had one thing in my life I could
redo, it would be that,” Brown said. “That was the number one coach of
my life, and I slipped up and took a little bit of luster away from that
moment.
“Flat-out, he’s the most positive influence in my life as
far as from a coaching standpoint. We lived and breathed football back
then, and we all just hung on every word that he said.
“He was just a motivator, and his words just ring forever
with you. ‘Sell the farm,’ that’s Jim Taylor right there. He’d say the
last precious ounce of energy in you, you’re giving it to what we’re
trying to do. And we would, for him.”
Brown remembered a particular game against Suttons Bay,
fresh off a rivalry win over Frankfort, in which the Portagers struggled
during the first half.
“Taylor came onto the bus last out of all the coaches at
halftime, and just gave it to us straight. Not barking or anything, but
told us like it was,” he said. “Then he said we were going to go back
out, run the kickoff back for a touchdown, and looked at me and said
‘Brown, then you’re going to hit Oleniczak for a 2-point conversion.’
That’s exactly what happened. We couldn’t believe it.
“He was like that. He just has football in his blood, and
most of us would have run into a brick wall for him.”
WASTING TIME
Lora Taylor, Jim’s wife, is his biggest supporter.
The role comes natural to the former Onekama cheerleading
coach of 21 years. Lora embraced Jim’s life in coaching and encourages
him to continue on. And despite her husband’s opinion on the matter,
she’s proud of the 50-year mark.
But Jim’s a man who doesn’t count. He’s got a genius
football mind, but puts priority in developing youth. He strives to win,
but doesn’t need hardware to prove that he did.
“I’m not into that stuff, or the 50-year thing to be
honest with you,” he said. “I’ve had some success and I’ve been honored
along the way, but that’s just because I’m getting old and decrepit.”
That last line was said, surely, with a twinkle in his
eye.
“I really appreciate the fact that they would still let
me hang around and coach,” he said. “That’s what’s flattering — the fact
they didn’t send me out to the farm and say ‘stay out of sight.’
“Sure, you have embarrassing games that you lose when you
shouldn’t, and like any coach, you’re embarrassed during times when your
program isn’t winning, and it kills you, even now. But it’s never an
embarrassment to be called an Onekama coach.”
His pride toward the Portagers is as simple as his
passion for football.
“There’s no better team game out there,” he said, “and
there never has been.”
On Monday, under a faded yellow cap encompassing the
distinct blue ‘O’ that he helped build, Taylor was still stamping his
approval on his players, some of whom are grandsons of Portagers from
the past.
And like their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers, they
put trust in his expertise and bought into his belief in them.
“The game has changed a bit — it’s gone to spread
offenses and a lot of different things — but it’s still just a great way
to develop young men,” Taylor said. “And I still think you can’t find a
better deal on Friday night. It’s just a great way to waste a few
hours.”
For 50 years and counting, with lives impacted too
numerous to count, Taylor has spent his wasted hours well.
Posted by Dylan Savela
Manistee News
Advocate on-line |
