Editor's Note: This is the eighth story of a 10-part series looking back at Texas' 2005 national championship season. We aim to bring you the stories that led up to and defined Texas' first national title campaign in 35 years. We call the series 10 Since 10.
Ramonce Taylor celebrates after Texas' victory over USC on Jan. 4, 2006. Taylor rushed for a touchdown in the game, which helped secure Texas' first national title in 30 years. (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
Dressed in gray athletic shorts, a black shirt and an orange Texas hat, Ramonce Taylor, St. Andrews High School’s new wide receivers coach, was a blur of movement that August afternoon on St. Andrew's practice field. The former Longhorn running back stalked the sideline as his team marched up field during a 7-on-7 game against Regents.
Taylor appeared spry and lean as his 30th birthday encroached – younger and unburdened. Time and experience have altered Taylor’s life path, but he seems to have broken time’s spell.
“Soft hands!” Taylor bellowed after one of his young protégés dropped a pass.
It’s a skill that came so naturally to Taylor along with his breathless speed and natural vision, a combination that earned him the nickname “Mr. Touchdown” in his hometown of Belton. Those gifts are also why Taylor to can still grasp at NFL dreams more than seven years after his last chance evaporated in a Bell County Courtroom, his mother screaming as the judge announced Taylor’s sentence.
After St. Andrew’s win that afternoon, Taylor walked into the football offices to receive his official Crusader gear: a new shirt, a pair of shorts and, a bit to his chagrin, a hat he exchanged for his Longhorn snapback. The hat stamped his return to Austin just over nine years after he transferred from Texas as a sophomore due to floundering grades – a symptom of a life spiraling out of control.
But that was a long time ago.
Now, strolling out of the gym, Taylor bumped into a coach from Regents, also a former Crusader wide receivers coach.
Ramonce Taylor celebrates a touchdown during his sophomore season at Texas.(Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
“I coached here, and I always told those guys soft hands. But it never helped” the coach said.
“It’s all about who’s teaching them,” Taylor retorted with a grin.
Taylor is instructing young players in the techniques that always came so easily to him. But the lessons necessary for Taylor to climb to this point, those were not earned without struggle or sacrifice.
***
”God blessed me with a hell of a talent.”
Taylor can’t figure out another way to put it.
He ran a 4.27 40-yard dash at a Texas junior day in 2004. He could have played multiple positions on the football field. Texas head coach Mack Brown originally wanted Taylor as a defensive back as he chased Adrian Peterson – also at the camp – for the team’s running back.
Then Brown saw Taylor’s time.
Ramonce Taylor and junior quarterback Vince Young embrace after Texas' national championship win. (Photo: 247Sports)
Less than two days later, offer in hand, Taylor committed to be a Longhorn running back, or maybe wide receiver.
He proved equally proficient at both. The coaches even gave him his own extra set of plays known as the “RT playbook.” He played sparingly as a freshman behind All-American running back Cedric Benson but exploded during Texas’ 2005 national title campaign. In a multi-faceted role as running back, receiver and return man, Taylor led the Longhorns with 1,219 all-purpose yards and 15 all-purpose touchdowns.
Former backfield mate Selvin Young, who played two years in the NFL with the Denver Broncos, called him “freakish.” Longtime Texas assistant coach Bruce Chambers said: “He could do whatever he wanted to on a football field.”
Then came a burst of glory so bright, it perhaps burned Taylor out.
Taylor shined in the second quarter of the 2005 national championship game against USC. He found a hole and scored on a 30-yard touchdown jaunt.
“I had great offensive line that opened up a big ole’ hole,” Taylor said. I was like ‘oh yeah, straight house call.’
“Paradise opened up,” Taylor said.
Texas won the in a 41-38 classic over the Trojans, and Taylor emerged as a top offensive playmaker in a backfield with future NFL Pro Bowlers Jamaal Charles, Vince Young and Henry Melton.
Ramonce Taylor poses with his mother, Ramona Clark. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
So yes, paradise, and all the temptations with it, welcomed Taylor in the months following Texas’ national title.
“I enjoyed those years,” Taylor said. “(We) had Dallas Cowboys status, and I was basically 21 as a sophomore every weekend. I didn’t have my mind adjusted to that the best.”
***
Taylor is named after his mother Ramona Clark. Clark raised Taylor in a single-parent household. She quit her job as a correctional officer to work more flexible positions with Dell and Sprint so she could attend Taylor’s high school games, where, from the stands and with arms churning, she ran Taylor’s touchdowns with him. Clark and Taylor talked daily when he left for Texas – they still do – but in the semester following Texas’ national title she felt Taylor drift.
“At that time he started to be distant and shut down,” Clark said. “So I knew something wasn’t quite right. Then I started questioning about grades.”
Taylor never had issues with grades before he arrived at Texas; his ACT score was among the highest at Belton High School. But he did have problems getting to class.
Taylor moved out of the on-campus dorms after the fall semester of his sophomore year. He rented an apartment in Pflugerville, more than 15 miles from the University against his mother’s advice. The distance perpetuated Taylor’s attendance issues and put him further behind academically. In the spring, with the air of the national championship still wafting around him, Taylor landed on academic probation. Though, his issues extended beyond the classroom.
“He wanted to be the big guy,” Clark said.
Ramonce Taylor during his sophomore season at Texas. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Friends who never made it out of Belton came back into Taylor’s life, and some of his main influencers were not associated with the football team. Taylor brought friends from home to Austin so they could party. Clark would show up at Taylor’s apartment and wouldn't see anyone associated with Longhorns in a crowded room.
“I didn’t want my boys to be like, ‘Oh man, you better than us,’” Taylor said. “We were still doing the same stupid s*** that I was doing in high school at Texas.
“At that time, the process was women, drugs and partying.”
Taylor’s drug of choice was marijuana. Taylor said he never peddled weed, but he didn’t often pass up an opportunity to smoke it. And as a football player at Texas, the occasions came with frequency.
The weekend of May 16, Taylor said a UT student handed him “10 (pounds) of marijuana” to keep. Said Taylor, “I was given 10 bricks just because I played for Texas. What was I going to do?”
Taylor said he gave half of the marijuana to his cousin Dominick Thomas so Thomas could sell it, and then the pair headed to Belton on Friday evening in Taylor’s truck. Taylor promised his mom he’d be home Saturday to celebrate Mother’s Day. But first, Taylor wanted to attend a party in nearby Little River. Taylor and Thomas stopped by Thomas’ house and Thomas removed the duffle bag of marijuana from the car. From there, joined by eight high school friends, Taylor and Thomas headed to the party held at a local farm.
Taylor drove down a long dirt road with pecan trees lining both sides before parking 150 yards away from the party in a large pitched tent. Taylor said he and Thomas were two of only three African Americans at the event when they arrived.
Taylor said a party growler growled toward him: “Get these ni***** out of here.”
Ramonce Taylor scores a touchdown during his sophomore season at Texas. Taylor led the Longhorns with 15 all-purpose touchdowns that year. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, USA TODAY Sports)
Taylor, who had shown up to hang with high school friends and sign autographs, believed people were setting him up for a joke. But the slurs continued, so he attempted to leave. Taylor reached his truck, and by the time his friends had all got to their cars, the majority of the gathering encircled his vehicle.
“Y’all better get the f*** out of my way before I start running over people or start shooting,” Taylor yelled.
Taylor said he sped out of the vicinity as bullet flew through Taylor’s rear window. Taylor reached for his gun, but pulled away when a friend pleaded for him not to.
Away from the farm, Taylor stopped at a convenience store to call the cops and report a hate crime. Thomas, who had prior records, left the area and took Taylor’s pistol with him.
The cops arrived and asked Taylor if they could search his truck. Taylor, knowing his cousin had taken the pistol, consented.
No firearm was found. Instead, the police discovered a nearly five-pound bag of marijuana – Thomas hadn’t felt comfortable leaving it at his house – and a round of 40-caliber ammunition.
“I was trying to help (Thomas) out, put money in his pocket,” Taylor said. “And I ended up getting caught. But I put myself in that situation. It shouldn’t have even happened.”
Taylor eventually spoke with Clark on Mother’s Day from the Bell County jail.
(Photo: Courtesy of Texas Athletics, 247Sports)
Bell County charged Taylor with possession of marijuana and Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges on Sept. 27. By that time, Taylor, suspended by Brown in January, had announced his decision to transfer from Texas on July 25.
Taylor quoted civil rights activist Frederick Douglass in a written statement announcing his intent to transfer.
“Frederick Douglass once said, 'No struggle, no progress.' I've had my share of struggles and now it's time for progress.”
***
Some projections had Taylor as an early-round pick for the 2007 NFL Draft. But after his arrest, life seemingly stopped bending to Taylor’s will.
Taylor didn’t get to play football his junior season after transferring – the only reason he left Texas. The NFL did invite him to the 2007 NFL Scouting Combine. But out of football for a year and unprepared for the invitation, Taylor ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash, the worst time of his life.
Taylor went undrafted. Nobody would take a flier on Taylor in free agency, either.
“I said screw it, forget everything,” Taylor said. “I started smoking again. I got a criminal trespassing charge, got in a fight at a bar. I went all out.”
Ramonce Taylor runs in a game with the Allen Wranglers, one of a number of Indoor Football League teams he played for in his career.(Photo: Courtesy of the Allen Wranglers, 247Sports)
Still on probation from his 2006 arrest, Taylor violated it with two failed drug tests, criminal trespassing and failing to report to his probation officer on multiple occasions. Bell County district court Judge Martha Trudo set Taylor’s sentencing for Feb. 15, 2008.
Yet, Taylor still had one more chance. After an agent switch, Taylor received a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 7. In front of Ray Farmer, then the Chiefs Director of Pro Personnel, Taylor ran a 4.38 40. Farmer stopped the tryout and brought then head coach Herm Edwards to watch Taylor.
After Edwards observed, he and Taylor went back to Edwards’ office and discussed a three-year, non-guaranteed contract.
“Boom,” Taylor remembers thinking. He planned to be back in Kansas City for rookie camp in March.
Taylor walked into the courtroom one week later and pleaded for a second chance. He skirted jail time once, and he needed the justice system to cut him another break.
“He’s like a piece of coal,” Taylor’s attorney, Bucky Harris, said in the courtroom. “If you put enough pressure on him he can become a diamond.”
Trudo handed down her sentence: five months of jail and five years of probation. Clark wailed. Trudo asked for Clark to be removed, and on her way out, Clark passed out, head striking the floor.
A few minutes later, a bailiff handcuffed Taylor and transported him to jail.
Ramona Clark felt her son needed to leave Belton to truly move on from his personal struggles after his release from jail. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
“That’s when I decided to do those five months and then my change my life,” Taylor said. “Because that’s the worse feeling ever to see your mom hurt.”
There would be no job in the NFL waiting for Taylor when he exited jail in July.
Taylor had brief stints with two Canadian Football League teams, but the Edmonton Eskimos cut him because of a preseason roster squeeze. Taylor never sniffed the NFL again after that.
“Once I got sent to prison there was nothing to be heard of in the NFL,” Taylor said. “The next year the [Chiefs] picked up Jamaal (Charles). That’s where I think I got blackballed.”
Taylor’s football career didn’t end there. He bounced around the Indoor Football League and still plays in semi-pro tournaments. But his NFL aspirations were all but snuffed out. For a player who still talks wistfully about the league – “my NFL dream isn’t crushed until I don’t have no legs” – the months following his release from prison were devastating.
At home in Belton, Clark listened as Taylor stifled cries at night.
“I knew he had come to realize he had messed up his life and what could have been,” Clark said.
***
Craig Kelly poses with Ramonce Taylor on the field of AT&T Stadium during the 7-on-7 open division championships. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Taylor’s release from his extended mental sentencing would involve football, yet in a fashion he never envisioned. He needed help. It came in the form of Fort Worth-area real estate agent Craig Kelly.
The pair met for the first time in December of 2006 at a youth camp put on by ex-Longhorns at Ft. Worth All Saints’ Episcopal School. Kelly, in charge of the event, showed up 30 minutes early 7:30 a.m. and Taylor had already taken the field.
Kelly’s son, Patrick, was crushed when Taylor elected to leave the Longhorns program.
“He’s just a thug,” Kelly told Patrick then. “You’ve just got to let it go.”
Yet, Kelly’s opinion started to shift when he observed Taylor at the camp. The maligned former Longhorn gravitated toward the weakest and smallest kids, a group that included Patrick. Taylor even assisted a camper who arrived in jeans by running to his truck and handing over his pair of Longhorn sweats.
Kelly called his wife.
“There is more to that kid than what we’ve heard and seen,” Kelly told her. “There’s something there.”
Kelly, an affluent white man with a family, and Taylor, then considered by many to be a convict, seemed an odd pair. But over the ensuing months they grew closer. Kelly and Taylor coached a 7-on-7 team together and Taylor attended family dinners at Kelly’s house.
Ramonce Taylor leads All Saints onto the field prior to a game. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
When Taylor went to jail, Kelly took the time to visit him. When he got out, Kelly lifted Taylor back into reality.
“I can never understand where you came from or relate. I don’t have your background,” Kelly told Taylor. “But I know where you want to go. I can help you get there.”
With his criminal record, it would be nearly impossible for Taylor to get a job at a public school. But well connected at All Saints, a private school, Kelly lobbied athletic director and varsity football head coach Aaron Beck to hire Taylor. In a volunteer role previously, Taylor helped lead the Saints to the open division state 7-on-7 championship. Beck reluctantly agreed and All Saints became Taylor’s chance at a fresh start.
Taylor could start to reconstruct himself.
“He could get recognized as Ramonce, and not Ramonce who had carried around five pounds of marijuana,” Clark said. “In Bell County it always felt like a dark cloud should always hang over him.”
The group quickest to recognize Taylor for what he wanted to become was his players. Assigned to a part-time role with All Saints’ pee-wee program – Taylor played IFL football at this time – Taylor did two things: impress parents and win.
Starting with a group of fourth graders, Taylor coached them for two seasons and lost just one game. Taylor worked with former Longhorn All-American lineman Blake Brockermeyer, now an assistant coach for All Saints’ varsity program, and Brockermeyer never worried about Taylor. In fact, Taylor coached Brockermeyer’s son.
“From the first day he was with me to the day he left, he was nothing but a model citizen and a model coach,” Brockermeyer said.
Ramonce Taylor holds his son, Ramonce, on the field after a game. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
After two seasons Beck, who’s coached in Texas for 33 years, saw enough in Taylor to elevate him full-time to All Saints’ middle school program with his original group of players. The Saints didn’t lose with him there, either.
Not all elite talents transition well into coaching. The professional and college ranks are littered with all-time greats who struggled to instruct players who lack their natural gifts. Taylor never had those issues. Taylor can be brutally honest with his team with the knowledge they respect his football acumen. Plus, if needed, Taylor can demonstrate routes and techniques with a refined command.
“He’s the complete package,’ Beck said. “He’s outgoing and gregarious, and he’s also been there and done football at the highest level, which always goes a long way with kids.
“I would certainly hire him back, and I don’t know how to make a higher recommendation than that.”
***
Taylor elected to move back to Austin after the 2014 season to be closer to home and to take a positon on the varsity level with the St. Andrew’s staff.
Taylor also went back to UT last August to finish his kinesiology degree. On track to graduate in May of 2017, Taylor needs the diploma to become a GA or an assistant coach, if he decides to go that route.
Perhaps in a move to cleanse or perhaps in a move to help, maybe both, Taylor, at the request of the UT coaching staff, spoke with then troubled third-year players Daje Johnson and Jalen Overstreet during the summer of 2014. Poor decisions swallowed Taylor’s football future, and no player could better communicate the repercussions of off-field mistakes to talented college players.
Daje Johnson said Ramonce Taylor taking the time to talk to him about choices helped Johnson endure a four-game suspension his junior year. (Photo: Peter Alken, USA TODAY Sports)
That had been Taylor nine years ago, after all.
"He just told me not to fall into that role of the person making bad decisions and to not waste my talent,” Johnson said. “He said you don’t want to be someone who looks backs and says, ‘I wish I would have done something differently,’ and have regrets.”
Texas head coach Charlie Strong dismissed Overstreet in July, one of nine players purged from Texas’ roster in Strong’s first year, due to an undisclosed violation of team rules. But Johnson endured a four-game suspension his junior year to remain a Longhorn.
Johnson, like Taylor, was a multitalented wide receiver/running back from Central Texas, and he credits Taylor’s advice and empathy for assisting him in trying time.
“Having that conversation helped me push through that and believe in myself,” Johnson said. “(It helped) keep me from making bad decisions."
***
Taylor stepped off the field that August afternoon after the win and walked into an embrace from Clark. A 40-minute drive from Belton, Taylor wasn’t back in his hometown, but he was close enough to attend almost every Belton High School home football game.
He’s still loyal to his old friends. But the days of kicking it with that crowd are done.
“I still talk to my boys,” Taylor said. “I haven’t cut ties. But it’s basically a hi and bye situation”
Ramonce Taylor with his girlfriend Taylor Fulfer and sons Ramonce II and Kyson.(Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Taylor is a father now – his girlfriend Taylor Fulfer gave birth to their second son, Kyson, on Dec. 15 and Ramonce II is 14 months old – and you’re about as likely to see him drop as pass as catch a drink in his hand. Taylor shows up at St. Andrews in the morning, stays for the after-school practice and heads home.
“It’s point A to point B,” Taylor said.
In his first year at St Andrews, the Crusaders went a program best 8-1. Taylor’s wide receivers helped lead an offense that averaged 43 points per game.
As it turns out, the same message with a different teacher can have an impact.
Taylor’s dreams are as vivid as ever. He still floats his name in NFL circles and hopes for a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys this spring, even though he’s aware the chances of any NFL team taking a flier on a now 30-year-old running back with a criminal record are almost nonexistent.
Taylor is content. Many remember him as “that Ramonce Taylor” but he’s slowly altering the perception. People who meet him often admit he’s not what they expected. Kelly, for his part, still apologizes to Taylor about his words to Patrick.
To his players, though, he’s Coach Taylor. Most are too young to evoke either Taylor’s on-field or off-field exploits. To them, he’s simply the man who finally explained what soft hands really meant.
“With young guys there’s no history, he’s judged only by what he does with him,” Kelly said. “They get the real Ramonce, and these kids would follow him anywhere.”
A 25-foot long jumper at his peak who can still dunk a basketball with ease, “Mr. Football” can’t help but smile. His son is waiting at home. With another year of coaching, he thinks the Crusaders will make a run at state.
“It’s crazy,” Taylor said. “I thank God every day for still being able to breathe and have life. I could be dead right now because of the path I was going down and the people I was hanging around with.”
As he walked toward his truck that August afternoon with new St. Andrew’s gear gripped tightly in his hands, it was easy to forget the events that marred Taylor’s life ever occurred.
Taylor’s back in Austin and happy. Ten years later, paradise opened once again.
Ramonce Taylor celebrates after Texas' victory over USC on Jan. 4, 2006. Taylor rushed for a touchdown in the game, which helped secure Texas' first national title in 30 years. (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
Dressed in gray athletic shorts, a black shirt and an orange Texas hat, Ramonce Taylor, St. Andrews High School’s new wide receivers coach, was a blur of movement that August afternoon on St. Andrew's practice field. The former Longhorn running back stalked the sideline as his team marched up field during a 7-on-7 game against Regents.
Taylor appeared spry and lean as his 30th birthday encroached – younger and unburdened. Time and experience have altered Taylor’s life path, but he seems to have broken time’s spell.
“Soft hands!” Taylor bellowed after one of his young protégés dropped a pass.
It’s a skill that came so naturally to Taylor along with his breathless speed and natural vision, a combination that earned him the nickname “Mr. Touchdown” in his hometown of Belton. Those gifts are also why Taylor to can still grasp at NFL dreams more than seven years after his last chance evaporated in a Bell County Courtroom, his mother screaming as the judge announced Taylor’s sentence.
After St. Andrew’s win that afternoon, Taylor walked into the football offices to receive his official Crusader gear: a new shirt, a pair of shorts and, a bit to his chagrin, a hat he exchanged for his Longhorn snapback. The hat stamped his return to Austin just over nine years after he transferred from Texas as a sophomore due to floundering grades – a symptom of a life spiraling out of control.
But that was a long time ago.
Now, strolling out of the gym, Taylor bumped into a coach from Regents, also a former Crusader wide receivers coach.
Ramonce Taylor celebrates a touchdown during his sophomore season at Texas.(Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
“I coached here, and I always told those guys soft hands. But it never helped” the coach said.
“It’s all about who’s teaching them,” Taylor retorted with a grin.
Taylor is instructing young players in the techniques that always came so easily to him. But the lessons necessary for Taylor to climb to this point, those were not earned without struggle or sacrifice.
***
”God blessed me with a hell of a talent.”
Taylor can’t figure out another way to put it.
He ran a 4.27 40-yard dash at a Texas junior day in 2004. He could have played multiple positions on the football field. Texas head coach Mack Brown originally wanted Taylor as a defensive back as he chased Adrian Peterson – also at the camp – for the team’s running back.
Then Brown saw Taylor’s time.
Ramonce Taylor and junior quarterback Vince Young embrace after Texas' national championship win. (Photo: 247Sports)
Less than two days later, offer in hand, Taylor committed to be a Longhorn running back, or maybe wide receiver.
He proved equally proficient at both. The coaches even gave him his own extra set of plays known as the “RT playbook.” He played sparingly as a freshman behind All-American running back Cedric Benson but exploded during Texas’ 2005 national title campaign. In a multi-faceted role as running back, receiver and return man, Taylor led the Longhorns with 1,219 all-purpose yards and 15 all-purpose touchdowns.
Former backfield mate Selvin Young, who played two years in the NFL with the Denver Broncos, called him “freakish.” Longtime Texas assistant coach Bruce Chambers said: “He could do whatever he wanted to on a football field.”
Then came a burst of glory so bright, it perhaps burned Taylor out.
Taylor shined in the second quarter of the 2005 national championship game against USC. He found a hole and scored on a 30-yard touchdown jaunt.
“I had great offensive line that opened up a big ole’ hole,” Taylor said. I was like ‘oh yeah, straight house call.’
“Paradise opened up,” Taylor said.
Texas won the in a 41-38 classic over the Trojans, and Taylor emerged as a top offensive playmaker in a backfield with future NFL Pro Bowlers Jamaal Charles, Vince Young and Henry Melton.
Ramonce Taylor poses with his mother, Ramona Clark. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
So yes, paradise, and all the temptations with it, welcomed Taylor in the months following Texas’ national title.
“I enjoyed those years,” Taylor said. “(We) had Dallas Cowboys status, and I was basically 21 as a sophomore every weekend. I didn’t have my mind adjusted to that the best.”
***
Taylor is named after his mother Ramona Clark. Clark raised Taylor in a single-parent household. She quit her job as a correctional officer to work more flexible positions with Dell and Sprint so she could attend Taylor’s high school games, where, from the stands and with arms churning, she ran Taylor’s touchdowns with him. Clark and Taylor talked daily when he left for Texas – they still do – but in the semester following Texas’ national title she felt Taylor drift.
“At that time he started to be distant and shut down,” Clark said. “So I knew something wasn’t quite right. Then I started questioning about grades.”
Taylor never had issues with grades before he arrived at Texas; his ACT score was among the highest at Belton High School. But he did have problems getting to class.
Taylor moved out of the on-campus dorms after the fall semester of his sophomore year. He rented an apartment in Pflugerville, more than 15 miles from the University against his mother’s advice. The distance perpetuated Taylor’s attendance issues and put him further behind academically. In the spring, with the air of the national championship still wafting around him, Taylor landed on academic probation. Though, his issues extended beyond the classroom.
“He wanted to be the big guy,” Clark said.
Ramonce Taylor during his sophomore season at Texas. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Friends who never made it out of Belton came back into Taylor’s life, and some of his main influencers were not associated with the football team. Taylor brought friends from home to Austin so they could party. Clark would show up at Taylor’s apartment and wouldn't see anyone associated with Longhorns in a crowded room.
“I didn’t want my boys to be like, ‘Oh man, you better than us,’” Taylor said. “We were still doing the same stupid s*** that I was doing in high school at Texas.
“At that time, the process was women, drugs and partying.”
Taylor’s drug of choice was marijuana. Taylor said he never peddled weed, but he didn’t often pass up an opportunity to smoke it. And as a football player at Texas, the occasions came with frequency.
The weekend of May 16, Taylor said a UT student handed him “10 (pounds) of marijuana” to keep. Said Taylor, “I was given 10 bricks just because I played for Texas. What was I going to do?”
Taylor said he gave half of the marijuana to his cousin Dominick Thomas so Thomas could sell it, and then the pair headed to Belton on Friday evening in Taylor’s truck. Taylor promised his mom he’d be home Saturday to celebrate Mother’s Day. But first, Taylor wanted to attend a party in nearby Little River. Taylor and Thomas stopped by Thomas’ house and Thomas removed the duffle bag of marijuana from the car. From there, joined by eight high school friends, Taylor and Thomas headed to the party held at a local farm.
Taylor drove down a long dirt road with pecan trees lining both sides before parking 150 yards away from the party in a large pitched tent. Taylor said he and Thomas were two of only three African Americans at the event when they arrived.
Taylor said a party growler growled toward him: “Get these ni***** out of here.”
Ramonce Taylor scores a touchdown during his sophomore season at Texas. Taylor led the Longhorns with 15 all-purpose touchdowns that year. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, USA TODAY Sports)
Taylor, who had shown up to hang with high school friends and sign autographs, believed people were setting him up for a joke. But the slurs continued, so he attempted to leave. Taylor reached his truck, and by the time his friends had all got to their cars, the majority of the gathering encircled his vehicle.
“Y’all better get the f*** out of my way before I start running over people or start shooting,” Taylor yelled.
Taylor said he sped out of the vicinity as bullet flew through Taylor’s rear window. Taylor reached for his gun, but pulled away when a friend pleaded for him not to.
Away from the farm, Taylor stopped at a convenience store to call the cops and report a hate crime. Thomas, who had prior records, left the area and took Taylor’s pistol with him.
The cops arrived and asked Taylor if they could search his truck. Taylor, knowing his cousin had taken the pistol, consented.
No firearm was found. Instead, the police discovered a nearly five-pound bag of marijuana – Thomas hadn’t felt comfortable leaving it at his house – and a round of 40-caliber ammunition.
“I was trying to help (Thomas) out, put money in his pocket,” Taylor said. “And I ended up getting caught. But I put myself in that situation. It shouldn’t have even happened.”
Taylor eventually spoke with Clark on Mother’s Day from the Bell County jail.
(Photo: Courtesy of Texas Athletics, 247Sports)
Bell County charged Taylor with possession of marijuana and Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges on Sept. 27. By that time, Taylor, suspended by Brown in January, had announced his decision to transfer from Texas on July 25.
Taylor quoted civil rights activist Frederick Douglass in a written statement announcing his intent to transfer.
“Frederick Douglass once said, 'No struggle, no progress.' I've had my share of struggles and now it's time for progress.”
***
Some projections had Taylor as an early-round pick for the 2007 NFL Draft. But after his arrest, life seemingly stopped bending to Taylor’s will.
Taylor didn’t get to play football his junior season after transferring – the only reason he left Texas. The NFL did invite him to the 2007 NFL Scouting Combine. But out of football for a year and unprepared for the invitation, Taylor ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash, the worst time of his life.
Taylor went undrafted. Nobody would take a flier on Taylor in free agency, either.
“I said screw it, forget everything,” Taylor said. “I started smoking again. I got a criminal trespassing charge, got in a fight at a bar. I went all out.”
Ramonce Taylor runs in a game with the Allen Wranglers, one of a number of Indoor Football League teams he played for in his career.(Photo: Courtesy of the Allen Wranglers, 247Sports)
Still on probation from his 2006 arrest, Taylor violated it with two failed drug tests, criminal trespassing and failing to report to his probation officer on multiple occasions. Bell County district court Judge Martha Trudo set Taylor’s sentencing for Feb. 15, 2008.
Yet, Taylor still had one more chance. After an agent switch, Taylor received a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 7. In front of Ray Farmer, then the Chiefs Director of Pro Personnel, Taylor ran a 4.38 40. Farmer stopped the tryout and brought then head coach Herm Edwards to watch Taylor.
After Edwards observed, he and Taylor went back to Edwards’ office and discussed a three-year, non-guaranteed contract.
“Boom,” Taylor remembers thinking. He planned to be back in Kansas City for rookie camp in March.
Taylor walked into the courtroom one week later and pleaded for a second chance. He skirted jail time once, and he needed the justice system to cut him another break.
“He’s like a piece of coal,” Taylor’s attorney, Bucky Harris, said in the courtroom. “If you put enough pressure on him he can become a diamond.”
Trudo handed down her sentence: five months of jail and five years of probation. Clark wailed. Trudo asked for Clark to be removed, and on her way out, Clark passed out, head striking the floor.
A few minutes later, a bailiff handcuffed Taylor and transported him to jail.
Ramona Clark felt her son needed to leave Belton to truly move on from his personal struggles after his release from jail. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
“That’s when I decided to do those five months and then my change my life,” Taylor said. “Because that’s the worse feeling ever to see your mom hurt.”
There would be no job in the NFL waiting for Taylor when he exited jail in July.
Taylor had brief stints with two Canadian Football League teams, but the Edmonton Eskimos cut him because of a preseason roster squeeze. Taylor never sniffed the NFL again after that.
“Once I got sent to prison there was nothing to be heard of in the NFL,” Taylor said. “The next year the [Chiefs] picked up Jamaal (Charles). That’s where I think I got blackballed.”
Taylor’s football career didn’t end there. He bounced around the Indoor Football League and still plays in semi-pro tournaments. But his NFL aspirations were all but snuffed out. For a player who still talks wistfully about the league – “my NFL dream isn’t crushed until I don’t have no legs” – the months following his release from prison were devastating.
At home in Belton, Clark listened as Taylor stifled cries at night.
“I knew he had come to realize he had messed up his life and what could have been,” Clark said.
***
Craig Kelly poses with Ramonce Taylor on the field of AT&T Stadium during the 7-on-7 open division championships. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Taylor’s release from his extended mental sentencing would involve football, yet in a fashion he never envisioned. He needed help. It came in the form of Fort Worth-area real estate agent Craig Kelly.
The pair met for the first time in December of 2006 at a youth camp put on by ex-Longhorns at Ft. Worth All Saints’ Episcopal School. Kelly, in charge of the event, showed up 30 minutes early 7:30 a.m. and Taylor had already taken the field.
Kelly’s son, Patrick, was crushed when Taylor elected to leave the Longhorns program.
“He’s just a thug,” Kelly told Patrick then. “You’ve just got to let it go.”
Yet, Kelly’s opinion started to shift when he observed Taylor at the camp. The maligned former Longhorn gravitated toward the weakest and smallest kids, a group that included Patrick. Taylor even assisted a camper who arrived in jeans by running to his truck and handing over his pair of Longhorn sweats.
Kelly called his wife.
“There is more to that kid than what we’ve heard and seen,” Kelly told her. “There’s something there.”
Kelly, an affluent white man with a family, and Taylor, then considered by many to be a convict, seemed an odd pair. But over the ensuing months they grew closer. Kelly and Taylor coached a 7-on-7 team together and Taylor attended family dinners at Kelly’s house.
Ramonce Taylor leads All Saints onto the field prior to a game. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
When Taylor went to jail, Kelly took the time to visit him. When he got out, Kelly lifted Taylor back into reality.
“I can never understand where you came from or relate. I don’t have your background,” Kelly told Taylor. “But I know where you want to go. I can help you get there.”
With his criminal record, it would be nearly impossible for Taylor to get a job at a public school. But well connected at All Saints, a private school, Kelly lobbied athletic director and varsity football head coach Aaron Beck to hire Taylor. In a volunteer role previously, Taylor helped lead the Saints to the open division state 7-on-7 championship. Beck reluctantly agreed and All Saints became Taylor’s chance at a fresh start.
Taylor could start to reconstruct himself.
“He could get recognized as Ramonce, and not Ramonce who had carried around five pounds of marijuana,” Clark said. “In Bell County it always felt like a dark cloud should always hang over him.”
The group quickest to recognize Taylor for what he wanted to become was his players. Assigned to a part-time role with All Saints’ pee-wee program – Taylor played IFL football at this time – Taylor did two things: impress parents and win.
Starting with a group of fourth graders, Taylor coached them for two seasons and lost just one game. Taylor worked with former Longhorn All-American lineman Blake Brockermeyer, now an assistant coach for All Saints’ varsity program, and Brockermeyer never worried about Taylor. In fact, Taylor coached Brockermeyer’s son.
“From the first day he was with me to the day he left, he was nothing but a model citizen and a model coach,” Brockermeyer said.
Ramonce Taylor holds his son, Ramonce, on the field after a game. (Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
After two seasons Beck, who’s coached in Texas for 33 years, saw enough in Taylor to elevate him full-time to All Saints’ middle school program with his original group of players. The Saints didn’t lose with him there, either.
Not all elite talents transition well into coaching. The professional and college ranks are littered with all-time greats who struggled to instruct players who lack their natural gifts. Taylor never had those issues. Taylor can be brutally honest with his team with the knowledge they respect his football acumen. Plus, if needed, Taylor can demonstrate routes and techniques with a refined command.
“He’s the complete package,’ Beck said. “He’s outgoing and gregarious, and he’s also been there and done football at the highest level, which always goes a long way with kids.
“I would certainly hire him back, and I don’t know how to make a higher recommendation than that.”
***
Taylor elected to move back to Austin after the 2014 season to be closer to home and to take a positon on the varsity level with the St. Andrew’s staff.
Taylor also went back to UT last August to finish his kinesiology degree. On track to graduate in May of 2017, Taylor needs the diploma to become a GA or an assistant coach, if he decides to go that route.
Perhaps in a move to cleanse or perhaps in a move to help, maybe both, Taylor, at the request of the UT coaching staff, spoke with then troubled third-year players Daje Johnson and Jalen Overstreet during the summer of 2014. Poor decisions swallowed Taylor’s football future, and no player could better communicate the repercussions of off-field mistakes to talented college players.
Daje Johnson said Ramonce Taylor taking the time to talk to him about choices helped Johnson endure a four-game suspension his junior year. (Photo: Peter Alken, USA TODAY Sports)
That had been Taylor nine years ago, after all.
"He just told me not to fall into that role of the person making bad decisions and to not waste my talent,” Johnson said. “He said you don’t want to be someone who looks backs and says, ‘I wish I would have done something differently,’ and have regrets.”
Texas head coach Charlie Strong dismissed Overstreet in July, one of nine players purged from Texas’ roster in Strong’s first year, due to an undisclosed violation of team rules. But Johnson endured a four-game suspension his junior year to remain a Longhorn.
Johnson, like Taylor, was a multitalented wide receiver/running back from Central Texas, and he credits Taylor’s advice and empathy for assisting him in trying time.
“Having that conversation helped me push through that and believe in myself,” Johnson said. “(It helped) keep me from making bad decisions."
***
Taylor stepped off the field that August afternoon after the win and walked into an embrace from Clark. A 40-minute drive from Belton, Taylor wasn’t back in his hometown, but he was close enough to attend almost every Belton High School home football game.
He’s still loyal to his old friends. But the days of kicking it with that crowd are done.
“I still talk to my boys,” Taylor said. “I haven’t cut ties. But it’s basically a hi and bye situation”
Ramonce Taylor with his girlfriend Taylor Fulfer and sons Ramonce II and Kyson.(Photo: Courtesy of Ramonce Taylor, 247Sports)
Taylor is a father now – his girlfriend Taylor Fulfer gave birth to their second son, Kyson, on Dec. 15 and Ramonce II is 14 months old – and you’re about as likely to see him drop as pass as catch a drink in his hand. Taylor shows up at St. Andrews in the morning, stays for the after-school practice and heads home.
“It’s point A to point B,” Taylor said.
In his first year at St Andrews, the Crusaders went a program best 8-1. Taylor’s wide receivers helped lead an offense that averaged 43 points per game.
As it turns out, the same message with a different teacher can have an impact.
Taylor’s dreams are as vivid as ever. He still floats his name in NFL circles and hopes for a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys this spring, even though he’s aware the chances of any NFL team taking a flier on a now 30-year-old running back with a criminal record are almost nonexistent.
Taylor is content. Many remember him as “that Ramonce Taylor” but he’s slowly altering the perception. People who meet him often admit he’s not what they expected. Kelly, for his part, still apologizes to Taylor about his words to Patrick.
To his players, though, he’s Coach Taylor. Most are too young to evoke either Taylor’s on-field or off-field exploits. To them, he’s simply the man who finally explained what soft hands really meant.
“With young guys there’s no history, he’s judged only by what he does with him,” Kelly said. “They get the real Ramonce, and these kids would follow him anywhere.”
A 25-foot long jumper at his peak who can still dunk a basketball with ease, “Mr. Football” can’t help but smile. His son is waiting at home. With another year of coaching, he thinks the Crusaders will make a run at state.
“It’s crazy,” Taylor said. “I thank God every day for still being able to breathe and have life. I could be dead right now because of the path I was going down and the people I was hanging around with.”
As he walked toward his truck that August afternoon with new St. Andrew’s gear gripped tightly in his hands, it was easy to forget the events that marred Taylor’s life ever occurred.
Taylor’s back in Austin and happy. Ten years later, paradise opened once again.
