Albany State's Taylor coaches international
team to gold medal
September 25, 2006
In 2006, it was “honkbal” in the
Netherlands. In 2007, it looks to be “el
béisbol” in the Canary Islands.
USA Athletes International Inc., a nonprofit
organization that gives amateur athletes and
coaches a taste of Olympic-style competition,
was so impressed by Albany State University
head baseball coach Edward Taylor’s debut – American
gold for the first time in more than five years – that
it has already asked him to return next summer
to lead another team. And this time, he gets
to bring his assistant coach.
“I’m keeping my passport up-to-date,” said
Taylor. “I told USA Athletes International
that I’ve got an assistant coach here
at Albany State I’d want to take with
me, and they said that’s fine.”
Consequently, Kenyan Conner has been named
to join Taylor at the Puerto Cruz Invitational
July 2007 in the Spanish-held Canary Islands,
which are located in the Atlantic Ocean off
the coast of Morocco.
Taylor was invited to participate by the organization
for the first time last year and accepted an
assignment to coach an American team competing
in the 2006 Robur ’58 tournament held
July 11-16 in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. The
last time a U.S. team had won the tourney was
in the late ’90s.
His underdog U.S. National team outplayed
competitors from Germany, Holland, Belgium
and their home country in a six-game series.
They claimed the gold medal with a 9-4 win
over fellow Americans in the championship match-up.
“It wasn’t a blowout. We had to
play. We were both undefeated when we went
head-to-head the day before to see who would
be top-seeded in the finals,” Taylor
said. “They defeated us the day before,
but we won the title match.”
The performance was especially impressive
since Taylor had not only not coached on an
international level, he did not know anyone
on his team prior to the trip except for a
single player. And that athlete, who happened
to be ASU student Marcus Smith, was three days
late arriving to the tournament because of
a passport snafu.
Nevertheless, Taylor remains modest about
his achievement, focusing instead on the skills
of the players and the support of his assistant
coach, Scott De Caprio of Chicago.
“I went over there with the same mind-set
I have here. They were a pretty good squad.
I didn’t have to do much at first but
sit back and let them play,” he said.
Along with playing ball, Taylor and the team
had the opportunity to experience the sights,
sounds and tastes available in their host country. “We
visited a palace, went on a boat ride and found
out they love mayonnaise over there,” he
said. “They put it on everything!”
One highlight was a visit to the house where
Jewish teen Anne Frank and her family hid in
an unsuccessful effort to avoid being killed
in Nazi gas chambers during World War II. Frank’s “Diary
of a Young Girl,” which recounts her
final days, became a best-seller and was made
into a movie.
“We went to the house where they were
hiding out,” recalled Taylor. “They
showed us pictures she had left on the walls,
and we saw pages from her actual diary. We
couldn’t read it, though, since it was
in Dutch.”
Taylor said a number of the athletes were
unfamiliar with Frank’s story prior to
the outing. “It was very educational,” he
said.
Exposing young athletes to educational and
cultural experiences is part of the mission
of USA Athletes International, a nonprofit
organization involved in international competitions
since 1992. UAI now competes in 14 countries
across the globe.
During the two-week trip, the participants
bonded as a team and also established firm
friendships with athletes from other countries,
Taylor said. “They made more friends
over there ... and I did the same.”
In fact, Taylor has been actively recruiting
international students he met while at the
tournament. “There are a couple of players
I’m working on that are real good. One
is from the Caribbean and the other is from
Holland,” he said. At the present time,
he has no international players on the ASU
baseball roster, although a student from the
Dominican Republic played here last year and
he expects a Costa Rican player to join the
team next semester.
Taylor, a former Golden Rams football and
baseball standout, had eyed a career in pro
sports, but a serious leg injury on the playing
field ended that dream. He is in his fifth
year coaching at Albany State.
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