Haywood Taylor started his
athletic career as an outstanding sprinter in Amateur Athletic Union
track meets throughout the tri state area, and he finished it many years
later as Beaver High School’s first track coach and as a
volunteer trainer for Geneva College athletes. Haywood was born in
Virginia in 1890 and came to Beaver County as a child. Although he
never went beyond the seventh grade in school, Haywood started competing
in AAU track meets in the early 1900s and won many medals as a
sprinter and in other events over a period of some fifteen years.
When Beaver High School decided to organize its first track team in
1924, Haywood volunteered to serve as coach without pay and
continued in that capacity until 1929 when the WPIAL passed a rule
that all coaches had to be full time teachers.
Taylor’s Beaver High track teams had to practice on cinder paved
Market Street between Third Street and River Road because the school
had no track in the 1920s (the distance was exactly a quarter mile).
His thinclads won three Beaver County track and field titles, plus
the 1926 WPIAL championship. Some of the athletes he developed were
Tom Chantler, Bill Butler, Fred Strother,
Frank Carver, Fred Pusch,
and Harry Watterson. Another was Bob Lynn, who
said that Coach Taylor was "the greatest psychologist I have ever
known. Everybody liked him. He had real horse sense.” From 1930 to 1935
Haywood
served as an unpaid volunteer trainer for Geneva College athletes
who sought his expert help. Haywood's interest in athletics
continued until his death in 1973 at the age of 83.
Haywood Taylor started his
athletic career as an outstanding sprinter in Amateur Athletic Union
track meets throughout the tri state area, and he finished it many years
later as Beaver High School’s first track coach and as a
volunteer trainer for Geneva College athletes. Haywood was born in
Virginia in 1890 and came to Beaver County as a child. Although he
never went beyond the seventh grade in school, Haywood started competing
in AAU track meets in the early 1900s and won many medals as a
sprinter and in other events over a period of some fifteen years.
When Beaver High School decided to organize its first track team in
1924, Haywood volunteered to serve as coach without pay and
continued in that capacity until 1929 when the WPIAL passed a rule
that all coaches had to be full time teachers.
Taylor’s Beaver High track teams had to practice on cinder paved
Market Street between Third Street and River Road because the school
had no track in the 1920s (the distance was exactly a quarter mile).
His thinclads won three Beaver County track and field titles, plus
the 1926 WPIAL championship. Some of the athletes he developed were
Tom Chantler,