FH : ‘She’s grown quite a bit’
Her face bloodied, Shannon Taylor lay still on the J.S. Coyne Stadium turf, trying to smother the pain. Taylor, the captain and leading scorer of the No. 3 Syracuse field hockey team, shut her eyes and pressed her hands to her face.
An opponent’s wayward stick and elbow had just cracked Taylor’s face. Taylor went down, her team trailing, her nose broken and bleeding.
‘My nose broke three times before,’ Taylor said. ‘They stopped the bleeding, and did just enough to get me back in. You have to. It’s a mentality to keep it going.’
As a freshman playing varsity at Seaford High School in Delaware, Taylor was hit by a ball in the face. It broke and bloodied her nose for the first time and she sat out, her father, Dwayne Taylor said. Blood made her feel uneasy.
She’s different now.
Taylor leads the nation in scoring (67 points). Seventeen games into this season, she broke the Syracuse all-time single season record for points (56). She’s a top candidate for the Honda Sports Award for field hockey – given to the top female athlete in each female NCAA sport.
This is the evolution of Taylor: How a girl with a monster swing of a stick learned to play through pain.
‘Number 11 is one of the top players in the country,’ Connecticut head coach Nancy Stevens said. ‘Shannon Taylor leads this team.’
Before Taylor hit the ground, Connecticut had built a 1-0 lead against the then-No.1 and then-undefeated Syracuse field hockey team. There was 8:52 left in the game.
Taylor moved out of her midfield position to try to strip a ball. Goalkeeper Heather Hess left Syracuse’s cage to allow for another attacker.
When a Husky closed in on the Orange goal, Taylor paid a price to make sure her opponent couldn’t get a shot at the cage. The Husky jerked, swinging the arm that carried her stick. Like a knockout, it clapped against her opponent’s face, leaving Taylor on the ground near the goal.
Taylor had to get up.
She had to get up because her first year playing in an SU uniform will be her last. Taylor knew if she transferred from Richmond last year – and traveled eight hours north to join her former coach Ange Bradley – she would redshirt as a junior. Taylor would have to stay in Syracuse when the rest of her teammates traveled to away games. She would have to commit three hours to practice, then watch from the bench as her teammates played.
‘By far, that hurt more than a bloody nose,’ Dwayne Taylor said.
To stay down and risk losing meant giving up. This is Taylor’s last season, her final shot at an NCAA Championship. Giving up isn’t a choice. And Bradley knew she wouldn’t.
‘She’s not the same person she was five years ago,’ Bradley said. ‘She’s proved me wrong, which is a great thing.’
***
Bradley and her former assistant coach, Jill Myers, shared a concern about the player who sat across from them at The Arcade Cafe near Richmond’s campus.
Taylor was a high school standout, set apart by how hard she could hit a ball. She had been practicing since she was 11, taught by a babysitter in the backyard. But when she moved to Virginia and entered James River High School as a junior, Taylor immediately garnered attention.
‘People started hearing that this girl had moved into town and that she brought a lot of hockey.’ Myers said. ‘Though she was new to the area she made a name for herself.’
James River is a 20-minute drive from Richmond’s campus. Through word of mouth at recruiting tournaments, Myers, Richmond’s former recruiting coordinator, began recruiting Taylor in late August of 2003.
Taylor sat beside her mother, eating chicken salad and talking to Bradley and Myers.
‘Taylor was choosing between two schools, and we were choosing between her and possibly another player,’ Myers said. ‘Ange kind of left that call up to me.’
After Taylor and her mother left the cafe, Myers gave Bradley her final decision on whether to recruit Taylor. Myers remembered saying: ‘Do you want this player’s strength? Because they are ones that can change a game and help you win.’
Bradley wasn’t sold at first. Sure, Taylor could drill a ball. And sure, she had scored 99 goals during her high school career. But Bradley didn’t know if Taylor had the tenacity or the mentality needed on a Bradley-coached team.
‘She was like a light switch,’ Bradley said. ‘She turned on, scored a goal, and said I’m finishing, and not playing on the other side of the ball.’
Myers brought a notepad to three of Taylor’s high school games while recruiting her that year. On her ‘minus-column’: Taylor loses ball. Hangs her head a bit. Begins a slow jog along the sideline.
If Taylor couldn’t push herself, how would coaches push her?
Still, Myers saw signs of a champion. She decided she could mold Taylor. ‘Scoring is not something you can’t teach,’ she said. ‘Fitness you can build.’
Together, they ran after practice. They did drills that didn’t require a stick in their hands. They sprinted. If the freshman would give up, Myers would yell, ‘Shannon, get back!’
With extra work, Taylor became a starter her sophomore year when Richmond made it to the NCAA Championship tournament. Her team would lose 4-0 in the first round to top-seeded Maryland.
‘I sort of put my faith in her, because I knew that weakness was improvable,’ Myers said. ‘And Shannon realized that there are no excuses with Ange. She got it.’
After Bradley resigned as Richmond head coach in December 2006, she asked Taylor to join her at SU.
It snowed heavily the weekend Taylor first visited Syracuse on Jan. 16, 2006. But Taylor noticed the city never shut down. Things kept moving. School went on. Sports continued.
Here, Taylor could push herself and others, Bradley said.
‘I’ve set a lot of goals and I’m reaching them personally,’ Taylor said. ‘As a team we’re really coming together as one.’
***
A broken nose in brisk October wind can cause throbbing pain. It bothers. It bleeds. It even changes voice pitch. It demands attention.
But Taylor always has that big shot. Even in pain, she can lift her chipped field hockey stick by its fading yellow grip and hammer its flat edge against a ball.
At Richmond, Taylor scored seven overtime goals, won seven games with the blunt side of her stick. She learned to perfect receiving the ball and placing it at the back of a cage, Myers said.
And like a field general, Taylor can direct her players on the field. ‘She knows the game so well, it’s improved to the point where she can direct people,’ Myers said.
Taylor is so determined to compete, she plays through injury.
‘It’s like a fire she exudes,’ Myers said. ‘Everyone can hate to lose, but the people who hate it the most are the ones that can change the game. And Shannon’s a game-changer.’
But a game-changer from each conference will be selected by the end of the season and nominated for the Honda Sports Award. And they may all have statistics to rival Taylor in contention for the player of the year.
What sets Taylor apart may be her knack to play through pain. How Taylor had proved Bradley wrong.
Not only can Taylor score and distribute and defend and lead, she can play through pain. She can sprint when she’s winded.
‘She’s grown quite a bit,’ Bradley said.
***
Lying on the turf, her nose broken, Taylor had that feeling. She needed to get up.
So she rose, head tilted to the sky. Her bloody right hand supported the ridge of her nose. She walked toward the sideline, and sat on the metal bench.
Taylor was given a bandage and minutes later returned to the field, where the Orange eventually lost 1-0. Taylor sprinted to the sideline, then paced back into Manley Field House to get her nose checked, her blue skirt flapping in the wind.
The following day, Taylor marched onto the Coyne Stadium turf, dragging her black cleats and wearing a bandage around her broken nose. She scored four goals in a 7-0 win over Holy Cross, tying Syracuse’s single-game goal record.
Taylor played with a broken nose.
The ‘kid’ who couldn’t stand blood got up and wiped her face. And after five years, Taylor has become one of the nation’s top players.
She’s different now.
‘I don’t ever want the feeling of walking off from practice or a game feeling I could have given more,’ Taylor said. ‘Because after this season I don’t have anything left.’
Published on October 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm
