Frank Thomas

Notable Sports Figures
Lawrence Taylor
frame house on the outskirts of the restored colonial village.
Hailing from a middle-class environment, Taylor
was the middle brother of three, and his parents have remembered
his early years as active ones. Taylor was
physical even as a small child. “He liked to hit,” his father
Clarence told New York Times Magazine. His mother
made Taylor spend hours working at chores around
the house to keep him occupied, sweeping the floors,
carrying in groceries.
At age nine, Taylor wrote down that he wanted to be
famous and to be a millionaire before he reached 30.
But he’d have to do it in some other way, because he
was not a very diligent student, and although bright, he
never turned on to what was offered him in the public
education system.
Taylor wanted to play little league football, but his
mother was worried about the dangers of the sport, so
she signed him up for little league baseball, where he
was an all-star for four summers in the position of catcher.
As a catcher, just as he later did as a linebacker, he
was able to survey all that was happening on the field.
(In his later life he would say he loved the position of
linebacker because “you control the game from there,”
much like the catcher does in baseball by calling the
pitches and reading the field.)
Lawrence’s high school coach, Mel Jones, had to do
little to convince Taylor that football, not baseball,
would be a great opportunity for him. He said that foot-
Chronology
Taylor
1959 Born February 4 in Williamsburg, Virginia, to Clarence and Iris
Taylor
1968 Writes down that he wants to be famous and a millionaire
before age of 30
1968 Starts Little League football, but mother decides it’s too
dangerous, signs him up for baseball instead
1973 Picks up game of football as high school junior
1977 Begins college football career at University of North Carolina
1981 Picked second overall in NFL draft by the NY Giants
1982 Marries Linda Cooley
1984 Investigation by NFL of Taylor’s friendship with New Jersey
bar owner Vinnie Rabo
1985 Ordered by North Carolina judge to buy house for former
girlfriend and pay child support
1985 Ends Joe Theisman’s career by breaking his leg in nationally
televised Monday Night Football game
1986 Enters rehabilitation program for drug abuse
1986 Emerges from treatment and has best season of his career
1986 Leads Giants to their first Super Bowl victory
1987 Crosses the NFL players association picket line during a strike
1987 Tests positive for drugs and suspended for four games
1990 Recovers from drug addiction, leads Giants to their second
Super Bowl victory
1993 Announces his retirement at the end of the season
1994 Sees his jersey, #56, retired by the NY Giants
1995 Signed by WWF to battle 390 pound Bam Bam Biegelow in
feature match of Wrestlemania XI
1999 Inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame
1999 Plays part of Luther “Shark” Lavay in Oliver Stone football film
Any Given Sunday
ball was how he could earn a college scholarship, telling
him that, “If you were black and from the rural South,
you thought about football the way other kids thought
about careers in law or medicine.”
LT (as he came to be known later on with the New
York Giants) continued to grow, and the summer between
his junior and senior years in high school he grew
five inches and added 30 pounds. That senior year of
high school was as if a switch had turned on. “He was
out to do something,” Paul Raynes told the New York
Times Magazine. “It was like he was saying ‘I’m going
to be great.’”
Limited College Opportunities
His late entry into football was one of the reasons he
was largely skipped over by college recruiters. Only two
recruiters spoke to him about college ball. The University
of North Carolina offered him a scholarship, in spite
of his poor grades, and Taylor wouldn’t turn it down.
He entered college with the belief that he needed to
raise hell, skip classes and get into trouble in order to
survive. “I was trying to be a hoodlum,” Taylor told the
New York Times in 1984. He felt that by instilling fear
into people, he could gain their respect. And for LT,
that’s what it was all about. But his social life followed
him onto the field, and his first few years with UNC
football were rather undisciplined. His inability to focus
1587