North Surry’s Patrick Taylor announced Wednesday that he is stepping down as varsity football head coach.
“It has been a great journey. It really has,” Taylor said in an interview with The News. “I’ll be forever grateful for the young men that I was able to work with over the years. I’m thankful for all the great memories I made with players, the records we broke, and being together for the wins and the losses.”
After a 20-year coaching odyssey – 12 of those coming at North Surry – Taylor said the timing just felt right to step back. He wants to spend more time with his family: his wife, Amanda, and daughters Mary Beth and Jessica.
“I want to thank all my coaching staff, and tell them how much I appreciate them for allowing me to be a part of something special both on and off the field,” Taylor said. Thank you to Tyler Beamer for his years filming and keeping our stats. Thank you to Kathryn Freed for her time as athletic trainer, and for the countless hours spent making sure all the needs of the team were taken care of.”
As an avid reader of classic American literature, Taylor often related situations on the football field to famous literary works. So, it was only fitting that he likened this transition to Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.”
“Maybe this is where I’m rowing my boat back to the shore; tired after fighting that proverbial fish and ready to rest,” Taylor said. “My wife and my family have supported me every step of the way. I’m very thankful for them and I want to make sure I’m there for them as well.
“We had a lot of good times here,” he continued. “I’m very thankful for the opportunity that Dr. [Paige] Badgett and North Surry High School gave me to be a head coach again. I want to thank Dr. Badgett and the Surry County Schools administration for supporting me on my journey, and I’m appreciative of this community for welcoming me and my family in.”
Surry County Schools issued a press release on February 14 thanking Taylor for his years of service to the football program.
“I appreciate Coach Taylor’s leadership and dedication to the football program,” Badgett said. “He remained flexible and coached during a global pandemic that has been filled with many challenges. Coach Taylor not only made a lasting impact on the North Surry football team, but also the culture at our school.”
Taylor is a graduate of Liberty University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in General Education. He began his coaching journey as defensive coordinator at Central Fellowship Christian in Georgia in 2002. After two years, Taylor moved to head coach and installed the air raid offense. CFC led their conference in yards passing and qualified for the playoffs each of the next four seasons.
He came to North Carolina in 2008 to be closer to family. He spent time as both offensive and defensive coordinator in two seasons at North Wilkes before finding his fit at North Surry.
“I’d like to thank coach Brian Hampton who gave me my start at North Surry,” Taylor said. “He allowed me to find a home here. Without him I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I’m proud to be part of his coaching tree.”
Taylor said a game his first year with the team was one of his best memories with the team. In 2010, the Greyhounds trailed East Surry 28-7 at halftime and were down 38-19 with 1:39 left in the third quarter. Taylor’s defense held the Cardinals scoreless in the fourth quarter, and North Surry went on to win 39-38 on the road. Three of Taylor’s assistant coaches this past season played in that game: Will Hodges, Daniel Draughn and Tanner Hiatt.
“I still remember Daniel Draughn catching the game-winning 2-point conversion like it was yesterday,” Taylor said. “That has to be the best comeback in school history. It was a huge game.”
Danny Lyons, now an assistant principal at Meadowview Magnet Middle School, took over as head coach when Hampton left for Ashe County in 2012. Taylor remained defensive coordinator while Lyons called the offense until the two swapped duties in 2014.
This was the beginning of the air raid offense at North Surry.
“I’m so proud of what we started there in 2010 turned into,” Taylor said. “I want to thank coach Lyons for allowing me to move to offensive coordinator and start the air raid that would soon rank as one of the top offenses in the state. I also want to say thank you to the people that would travel to Toast from all over to learn about what we were doing in the Foothills of N.C.
“I’d like to think that we changed things a little bit around here. We start throwing the ball some and all of a sudden everybody starts tossing it around the yard in one way or another. We had to change the number of all conference receivers because there started being so many good options.”
Taylor highlighted the amount of local players named Player of the Year as quarterback and wide receivers recently. He said 10 years prior those honors almost exclusively went to running backs.
In North Surry’s second season with the air raid, quarterback Avery Smith threw for close to 2,500 yards and was named Western Piedmont 2A Conference Player of the Year. The Hounds had another QB, Chase Swartz, named Player of the Year in 2017, in which North Surry won the schools first conference championship in 17 years, and 2019.
Taylor was named head coach in 2019 when Lyons departed to pursue a career as an administrator. North Surry set all kinds of offensive records that season as the air raid was in full effect. Swartz led the state among all divisions in yards passing per game with 315.6. This included a game of 591 yards passing, which ranks No. 7 in state history, and a game of 480 yards passing, ranked No. 31 in state history.
Swartz went on to set the Surry County record for career yards passing with 7,059, and teammate Nick Badgett set the county record for career yards receiving with 2,759.
“Even though it was a loss, that 591 yard passing game against Mount Airy was one of the most memorable games of my career,” Taylor said. “One of my teams threw for 500+ yards in Georgia in 2007, and that was the only other time.”
Taylor named a few more of his memorable moments as coach, including a spring 2021 win over Surry Central that went down to the wire, defeating West Stokes in 2017 to win the conference championship, and a stretch in 2019 in which the Hounds personified the school’s trademark “Greyhound Grit” in three-consecutive conference games that all came down to the final drive.
Even with all the positive experiences Taylor had on the field, he said the moment that will stick with him the most happened in the locker room before a 2019 game against East Surry.
He gave the following quote in an interview the with the News following that game:
“It’s not necessarily the X’s and O’s of football, and not necessarily what you hear about a lot in the public, but we had seven football players give their life to Jesus tonight before we went and kicked off on the football field,” he said. “I’ll promise you this: I’ve been coaching for about 19 years and if I never win another game as a head football coach, that’s all the victories I need.”
When Lyons took the head coaching job in 2012, he said Hampton told him to “leave it better than you found it.” Taylor said he was given similar instruction by his predecessors, and he hopes to have made them proud.
“We got a new weight room, scoreboard, locker room and press box all in the last three years,” Taylor said. “Thank you to the Greyhound Foundation and everyone that helped make that possible, and thank you to all the people that sacrificed their time to support this program. I believe the job is prime to take over and continue the upward trend that has been going the last 12 years.
“It’ll be weird walking into a school and not being a coach for the first time in 20 years, but it had to happen eventually and it just felt like the right time to me to take a breather. I plan to continue my role as a teacher, working with the kids to help them reach their potential.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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