All-Area Basketball: Spring Creek's Taylor named boys' coach-of-the-year

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on April 9, 2015 1:48 PM

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By ALLEN ETZLER

aetzler@newsargus.com

SEVEN SPRINGS -- When Taylor Jones first got into coaching, he thought a lot about the kind of coach he wanted to be.

He didn't even know what he wanted to wear on the sideline, much less know how he wanted to act.

"I've always been kind of loud as it is," Jones said. "I tried sitting down and being quiet for a few games, and that just wasn't going to work."

Slowly, Jones found his coaching style.

He figured out his coaching wardrobe.

And he developed into a high-energy, motivational coach who roamed the sidelines during Spring Creek's games, and led the team to record-tying campaign this winter. The Gators won 21 games and earned a share of the Carolina 1-A Conference regular-season championship.

The journey didn't happen overnight.

It started when this year's crop of seniors were eighth-graders. Call him crazy, but Jones knew they could be a special group of players.

"There was a cohesiveness there, you could tell they knew how to play together from the very beginning, which wasn't something I had seen from other teams," said Jones, who has been selected as the 2015 News-Argus All-Area boys' basketball coach-of-the-year.

It was a process, but the players developed into an unselfish unit that put the team before themselves.

"We had our fair share of problems just like every family," Jones said. "But these guys were the most competitive and unselfish group that I have ever coached and they overcame all of that stuff together."

The Gators were led by a quick backcourt -- Trey Hammonds, Gary Williams and Brandon Gonzalez. They had strong frontcourt play from undersized players like Jordan Hicks and Chad Spurgeon, and had depth on the bench.

More importantly, they trusted Jones.

"Playing for someone like coach is easy," Hammonds said. "He coaches with so much energy and that makes you want to go out there and play with that same energy."

The trust in the team and the coach, took Spring Creek to a level it hadn't achieved in more than a decade. The Gators dropped two of their first three games to start the season, but then became nearly unbeatable.

Jones said it was interesting that this year, of all years, he won the coach-of-the-year award because it was a year in which he did the least amount of coaching during the games he has ever done.

"I did less of the X's and O's than I've done in the past," he said. "When game day came, I just let those guys go play."

Instead he pushed his attention toward scouting and the mental aspects of the team. He started "uncommon days" at practice where the players would stand up and share things about themselves with their teammates. One "uncommon day," the players had to talk about the worst day of their life.

"It was tough for a lot of us, a lot of us got emotional, myself included," Jones said. "But I really think it was something that helped bring us together."

With more than a month to go in the season, Hammonds and Spurgeon were already campaigning for Jones to be the all-area coach-of-the-year. Spurgeon told Jones if didn't happen, he was calling the newspaper.

"That's just the kind of team we had," Jones said, who told just four people about the award -- his wife, Hammonds, Spurgeon and Spring Creek athletics director Heath Whitfield.

"They weren't worried about what award they would get. They wanted everybody else to get the recognition."

Somehow, Jones' accomplishment made the morning announcements at school.

"It's just awesome, because he really deserves it," said Hammonds, whose coach is going to become a father.

Jones fully expects to be as active with his child as he is on the sidelines. As a coach, Jones spends hours scouting and watching film every week. He'll be just as involved in his child's life -- probably more.

And there's one more similarity to Jones' coaching that he thinks might carry over into fatherhood. He's not really sure what it's going to be like.

"It's really, really exciting," Jones said. "But, I'm scared to death."