Player Intro
Taylor Jackson is a boys basketball coach at Social Circle High School in Georgia. He has also coached at powerhouse Newton High School, and played JV basketball at Covenant College for three years. Though he has a long history as an athlete and coach, he finds his primary identity as a follower of Jesus. He discusses the intersection of his different identities, and how they interact to support him in encouraging his players to grow, both on and off the court.
Gameplan
pD: Alright, Taylor, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate you being here. Go ahead and tell me a little bit about your sports background, and where you're at currently with sports.
TJ: I grew up with a ball in my hand, and mainly it was a baseball from the earliest of ages. Just grew up around sports, and always enjoyed playing and watching. I had a lot of success playing high school basketball. I played at a small private school in Monticello, Georgia, just real rural, so it was a perfect level for me. I'm very short and not super talented, but I was able to be successful, can shoot a little bit. In high school, I scored a lot of points, and then went to Covenant, and that's where me and you met. Just played JV for three years; I will say, I did play one varsity game, I didn't know if you knew that. I dressed for the varsity one time, and scored five points, I think. I just went in there and shot it every time they passed it to me. But, you know, I just really enjoyed playing and being a teammate.
After graduating from Covenant, I knew I wanted to stay in sports, so I ended up taking an assistant coach job at Newton High School. I'm in Georgia, so Newton High School is one of the largest high schools in the state, and has a rich basketball tradition. So this is kind of my claim to fame, riding the coattails of other people; so I'm an assistant at Newton for three years, and while we were there, my last year there, we were nationally ranked and just had a really tough team spearheaded by Ashton Hagans, who plays for the Timberwolves now. So he was awesome, and we also had two other Division I guards; one's at Arkansas, and one's at North Carolina Greensboro, and both are just crazy talented. My claim to fame athletically is I was a part of the team where we had really good players.
So I did that for three years as an assistant, and actually now, I'm the head boys coach at a very small public school in rural Georgia, called Social Circle. This is my second year doing that, and I'm loving it. So that's kind of the sports background for me.
pD: So talk to me a little bit, like you said, you've been in and around sports for the majority of your life. What are some of the habits or traits that you've developed through your time in sport?
TJ: Man, I love this question, because I talk to my players a lot about the habits are the most important thing. There's always a chance to practice a good, or to develop a bad habit. It goes down to the most minute details: "Am I on time everyday?" And when I say, am I on time, am I prepared to start practice, even as a player, am I warmed up, am I stretched out, am I mentally prepared, ready to go when the clock says this time?
There's always a chance to practice a good, or to develop a bad habit
So that obviously manifests itself throughout life, just being on time, and then being mentally there when it's time to go. Thing like: "Am I willing to be mentally tough throughout?" And I do want to get into this when we talk about the challenges, but I talk to my players a lot about mental toughness, not just the ability to handle adversity, but also the ability that, when things are going your way, to continue in the habits that brought you to that point. For example, to not be complacent in it, to stick with what's working, that kind of thing.
I think one of the biggest things that I've learned from sports, is that we definitely appreciate the victories along the way, but the real victory is this overarching journey, the long game. So we talk a lot about this as a team as well, winning one eight-minute quarter means nothing, right? We have to win a thirty-two minute game, and even that one game is part of a twenty-five game season, and when we're talking about high school athletes, like, "Are you prepared foundationally as a freshman so that you can reap the rewards as a senior?"
So we're talking about a four-year game, and again, that's just a picture of the rest of your life. I don't want the best time of my players' lives to be while they're in high school; I want them to be mentally prepared and ultimately, spiritually prepared, for the next sixty years. Sports helps paint a picture for that, so as you grow older, you start to see that more clearly, I think. So I appreciate the role sports has had in shaping me that way.
pD: So you talked a little bit about this already, but talk about how some of these attitudes and preparations carried over to other parts of your life.
TJ: Well, I think I wanna flip it, I think for me personally, the role of my faith started at first. And I don't want to be boasting in that, even; my parents were so awesome in that, that they raised me and my siblings to understand, and my mom will still tell me this, "Before you're a ballplayer, before you're a coach, before you're a dad, a son, a husband, before anything, you belong to Christ, and how are you reflecting that?"
And she told me that a lot even while I was at Covenant, and we'll talk about frustrations here in a little bit, but you know, I was coming off of high school, I was the big fish in a little pond, where I was scoring a lot of points, playing every single minute, and I go to Covenant, it's like: guess what, you're really just OK. You're not anything special, and I personally would become frustrated with that, and she was always just, "What are you first? Before a basketball player, you're Christ's, and how are you showing that to your teammates?" Right, are you going to practice every day, are you being an encouragement every single day, are you doing your best every single day? So my parents were just really influential in that, just pushing me, pushing me, pushing me into Christ, so I think that helped me put sports in a right perspective to help me develop those habits.
Because I know for a lot of athletes, when the ball bounces for the last time, they think "Well, where do I go now?" But I just feel like because of my faith, I was ready to put the ball down and to pursue other things; things like: What kind of father do I want to be? What kind of husband do I want to be? Am I loving and leading my wife the way Christ did for the church? And the same for my kids: How am I leading my children? Am I showing up every single day? When I wake up, am I ready to be the man, husband, father that God has called me to be?
When I go to work, I belong to Christ. I'm not just punching a clock, I'm not just collecting a paycheck, I'm developing relationships, I'm intentional, I'm seeking those out, I'm showing and sharing the love of Christ as a schoolteacher (that's my real job, I'm not just a basketball coach); I'm a math teacher, and am I showing my students, am I modeling for them what it looks like to love Christ? You know, sports definitely helped iron that out for me in my personal life, but I would definitely say that, even if I never had sports, the role that my parents had in helping me see the world through a proper lens was really just a massive blessing, massive grace of God in my life.
pD: So yeah, let me pivot over to asking about a challenge that you've faced, and you mentioned it a little already, and how did you face and overcome that challenge?
TJ: Yeah, so a little bit about that Covenant challenge; it was minor to some degree, because by the time I was a sophomore or junior, I just didn't love basketball. Like I could look at the other guys around the basketball team, and I saw guys that, this is their love, this is on the front of their hearts, that's awesome. God definitely gave us a desire for that. I also saw the writing on the wall, I'm not super tall, I'm 5'7, not fast, not super strong, not a great athlete.
It was kinda time to put it down, and just to do it with grace, loving every minute of those three years, and then simultaneously saying "It's OK, Taylor, basketball is not your identity." You're not in that, and again, you belong to Christ; so it was a challenge to some degree, you know, but at the same time, it was a massive blessing, and it was freeing to just step away from competitive basketball, and the daily grind, to just be a kid, you know; I would still play intramurals, or play pickup whenever anyone wanted to, but that was, literally, the first time since I was eight years old where I didn't have a season, a basketball season.
Basketball is not your identity
I also wanted to bring up one other challenge that I had been thinking about; this actually happened this year in my coaching career. So again, I was at Newton, we won twenty games every year, it was almost too easy when you have that kind of talent. Last year, my first year as head coach at my school now, we won twenty games; here I am, feeling like "You're God's gift to coaching; you took this one small school and won twenty games."
But I also understood that our schedule was really light, and so this year, our schedule was really not light; we have about five hundred students in our school, and I do boy's basketball, so if you cut that in half, that's about two-fifty boys, and then even our basketball playing population, you're talking about at most, forty kids, maybe fifty, that I'm trying to take a competitive basketball team from. Because we want to win, we want to win the state championship, that's our goal every year.
So we actually buffed up the schedule a lot; we played multiple teams with 1,500 kids, 2,000 kids at their school, and we've taken a lot of lumps this year. We have a 23-game schedule, and before last night, we had lost eight of our last nine, and it kinda came to a head when we lost a game against a team that's in our region that was really not good, that we felt like we should've won. And we played really poorly; I just keep hearing my mom in my head, like "Whose are you first?" Is your identity wrapped on wins and losses as a basketball coach, and I'll be honest with you, I flirt with that line daily. It is hard for me to put that to the side and say, "I'm Christ's," not just first, but only.
It's definitely been a humbling season for me to say, after a lot of these losses, and we've competed, I don't want to say that we got blown out; our worst loss has been by fourteen points to some of these massive schools. We're out there, we're fighting hard. But some of these days after a tough loss and a battle, you look at the record, you're just like "Man, I just wanna give them the day off tomorrow; instead of practice, I just wanna go through the motions and not be there."
But we're called to do all things for His glory, and I firmly believe that that comes with how we prepare and are we on time, and are we passionate about what we're doing, so a lot of times, it's just like, "Suck it up buttercup, we're going again." And it's been really great, I've been really grateful to my players, who have totally responded. And whether they respond or not is irrelevant, because we're just called to do that.
But they have responded, and last night, we played a 6A team, they have 2,000 kids at their school, and we won by thirty. Just super proud; but even if you lose, you're called to just keep moving forward and doing your absolute best. And I want to model that for my student-athletes, and they've definitely responded. I just have a great bunch of kids. That's been one challenge that's still present, I would say, we haven't totally moved out of it, but we had the big win last night.
It's a long game
These things, like I said earlier: it's a long game, it's a season long, it's years long, it's what kind of man am I helping to mold at the school I'm at now. Like I said earlier, if the best time of their lives is their four years in high school, that hurts my heart; I want them to be great husbands and great dads in the next decades or so. But yeah, that's kind of a lot, but that's kind of a challenge going on right now.
pD: Now, I know you guys are probably in the middle of your season, or getting ready to wind down at this point. So I know you haven't really had a chance to reflect on this season as a whole yet, but, going from a very successful program a couple of years ago, a very winning season last year, to this season where you struggle to string the wins together, why is it important to have faced this challenge?
TJ: I was reflecting on this question earlier; I just think that the challenges and struggles of sports specifically, what we're talking about, they just paint a picture of our lives and the sanctification process. It's not all just flowers and sunshine, right? It's not all 20-win seasons, it's not all state championships. For every game you win by 1, you're probably going to lose a game by 1. Every buzzer-beater you make at the end, you're gonna get beat by a buzzer-beater.
But that's how God works us out too; He chisels us; look, He gives us a lot of grace, and a lot of awesome, good times, whether it's enjoying being with your family or whatever he gives you at work, or any of those things where it's kinda like "Oh yeah, everybody would say this is a good thing." But He also gives us tough times, that we have to wrestle and struggle and cry and endure. And it's just Him making us more into the image of His Son.
And sports help show us that picture; I know part of that as well, you know, going back to Covenant, and even me in high school, when I was in high school, we won twenty games every year as well, and then I come to JV, and we weren't very successful. You know? So wrestling with that, but I remember when we finally got over the hump and won one, how sweet was that? How sweet it was to win, you know, and I'm not saying winning is everything, but how much richer and sweeter it is when you've endured, and you still go to work every day, and you still do the right thing every day, even though the results aren't what you want it to be, and then finally you get a little bit of a breakthrough.
Sports helps show us that picture
And I think that picture's, oftentimes, how God works us out as well. Whether it's relationship struggles or difficulties or maybe it's just something like "I'm not in God's Word like I need to be." And I have a beautiful moment of "Oh, this thing is so rich." And that's not advice to hold out and not read the Bible for months at a time, but it's just, He's so gracious to us, He gives us what we need, and I just think that enduring those challenges help us see what He's doing in our lives in a small way at least.
pD: Thanks for answering those questions. I'm gonna leave it up to you to close this out; do you have any further thoughts that I haven't asked about, or I haven't really touched on?
TJ: Well, just to wrap this up, kinda going back to, following your activity on social media and stuff, and man, I just appreciate what you're doing. It's so needed and encouraging to me. And it always comes back to that word "habit."
Ray Allen, when he hit his big shot for the Heat, I don't know what NBA finals that was, you know what I'm talking about, when they beat the Spurs. And they interviewed him about "What do you do to prepare?" That's one of the biggest 3's, if not the biggest 3, of all time, that specific one. And he responds, he says "It's just habit; boring habit." And I just always ponder, think about that corner 3 that he made, how many hundreds of times has he made that in an empty gym? So that when the lights are the brightest, and the fans are the loudest, and the moment was the biggest, he was ready. He was absolutely ready.
And that's just a picture, not just for basketball and every single thing we do in basketball, it's a picture of life. It's going through the day-to-day and doing the right thing every single thing, and developing those habits. Again, I don't want to boast about myself, but I get up at 5:30 every single morning; I'll sleep in til about 7:30 or 8 on the weekends, so that's my cheat day. But every morning, I'm gonna get up, I wish I was better about going to bed at the same time, but having this good habit every day so that when life does through you a curveball, or grant you an opportunity, you'll be ready, whatever that may be.