BRICE TAYLOR

First Step in the All-American Walk

Por USC Athletics Black History Month

16 de February de 2015

USC football boasts 162 All-Americans in the program’s rich history.

The latest version, two-time All-American DL Leonard Williams, was built to dominate the sport. At 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, the “Big Cat” has the strength and agility to capture and devour his prey.

Williams is the new mold. The original version dates back all the way to 1925 when All-Americans looked a bit different. But, none of them looked like Brice Taylor. He broke the mold before it was even cast.

Taylor was a 5-foot-9, 185-pound offensive guard. Current USC freshman offensive guard Damien Mama is listed at 6-foot-5 and 370 pounds. Taylor was also born without a left hand, keeping him from the skill positions despite world-class speed.

USC football will never have another one-handed, 5-foot-9 All-American offensive guard, but Taylor’s physical similarity to many future Trojan All-Americans is what made him even more unique in his day.

He was black.

He was an African-American All-American 40 years before Jim Crow laws were painstakingly laid to rest. He was an African-American All-American four years before Martin Luther King Jr. was even born.

Taylor was not just battling slurs from hostile road crowds, he was thriving in an era of institutionalized racism. And, by all accounts nearly a century later, he did it with a smile on his face.

He tirelessly played three-ways for the football team, helping the program to a 28-6 record in his three-year career. When he was not playing football, he sprinted and hurdled for the track team, including helping the 1925 squad set a world record in the mile relay.

Taylor never stopped pushing the limits even after his playing career ended. He was a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles City School District, the President of Guadalupe College in Texas, and a football coach at four colleges in the South, including Southern, where he began the famed rivalry with Grambling now known as the Bayou Classic and led the Jaguars to an undefeated season in 1931.

Taylor, a direct descendant of American Indian chief Tecumseh, earned his place in Trojan nobility becoming a USC Athletic Hall of Fame inductee in 1995. He died in 1974.