National Football League (NFL) player Vincent Taylor was all smiles when the Zoom meeting started.
Friendly. Polite. Excited.
That said, I don’t think the Kansas City Chiefs will see the friendly and polite side of Taylor on Sunday, Jan 17.
“We know we are playing the defending Super Bowl champs, but at the end of the day they got to see us just as well as we got to see them,” said Taylor “I am going to go out there and put my best foot forward, do what I got to do to help the team win. It’s just another game. I am looking forward to it.”
Taylor is a defensive lineman for the Cleveland Browns.
But let’s back up.
Before Sunday, before being signed to the Browns, even before playing for Coach Jim Streety at Madison High School, Taylor lived in Louisiana. That’s where his story begins.
“We’ve all got a journey; this has been mine,” said Taylor. “I had heard of hurricanes but never really experienced one until Katrina.”
Taylor and his family were in New Orleans when Katrina hit. They were staying in a hotel where his mother worked. When the rains stopped, his family home was gone. He was only eleven years old.
“We just started driving,” said Taylor.
Until that moment, he had never been out of the state of Louisiana. They drove until they hit San Antonio.
“My dad saw a high school and thought it was a college,” said Taylor. “Schools in New Orleans were not that big.”
He eventually started school in another school district. The move wasn’t easy. And to hear Taylor tell it, kids in class didn’t make it any easier.
“They were mean man; they told me to go back to where I came from,” said Taylor. “It made me angry. I started getting into fights. My mom told me to take my frustrations out on the field.”
So, he did what any good kid would do; he listened to his mom and started playing football. He switched schools, switched districts and started playing football at Madison.
“Coach Streety. He was good, man. We still stay in touch,” said Taylor.
It’s a relationship that has lasted well past the halls of Madison High School. But he’s never forgotten the lessons learned there.
“Every week, Coach Streety would stop me in the halls and call me into his office and check my grades,” said Taylor. He made sure I was doing the right things, in the hallways and in the classrooms to make sure I could play football.”
Taylor kept his grades up and dominated on the football field. He was recruited by Oklahoma State University(OSU) to play football for them.
“I still wasn’t even thinking the NFL,” said Taylor. “I just wanted to graduate high school and go to college. It wasn’t until later in college I started thinking the NFL could happen. So, then I buckled down and got to working even harder.
In 2017, Taylor decided to forgo his senior year at OSU and declared for the NFL draft, getting picked up in the sixth-round by the Miami Dolphins. In September 2019, he was waived. He signed with the Buffalo Bills a few days later. Last September, he was waived by the Bills. The Browns signed him the next day.
“It’s wild man,” said Taylor. “It’s just the journey I am on. You just never know.”
Taylor is proud of his Louisiana roots but also thinks of San Antonio as home. Next month, he’s opening up a barbershop called Neighborhood Heroes near the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) campus. It’s a project he’s working on with former Madison teammate Jordan McCook.
“We are two guys from the North East ISD side out town bring a barbershop. Football isn’t going to last forever,” said Taylor. “I have been blessed. People look up to us. We want to be heroes in the neighborhood. We are looking forward to it.”
That’s Taylor, rising to the occasion and giving back to the community that has given him so much.
“I want the students in the North East District to know hard work pays off,” said Taylor. “I went to James Madison! If you work hard, everything can happen for you. It starts with your grades, in order for you to get those scholarships to go to the next level. Just keep dreaming big.”
UPDATE: The Cleveland Browns lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the AFC Divisional Playoffs 17 to 22.
