UTC men’s basketball coach Will Wade, left, and Johnny Taylor speak to the media at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in this file photo.It didn’t take long for Will Wade to appreciate Johnny Taylor’s legacy within the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball program.
“You can’t miss him,” said Wade, the Mocs’ new head coach. “There’s a huge picture of him on the wall in our practice facility.”
Thanks to Wade, UTC’s current players will no longer have to scroll their eyes up that wall to see the only NBA lottery pick in school history. They can now stare him in the face at every Mocs practice, for Johnny’s come marching home again as a student assistant.
“When I first got the job, I called Johnny, just like I called all our other former players,” said Wade. “He was on his back porch in Orlando. He told me his parents still lived in Chattanooga and that he wanted to get his degree from UTC. I told him I’d get back to him in a couple of days.”
When Taylor completed his senior season with the Mocs in 1997 by guiding the school to its lone Sweet 16 appearance, he was four courses shy of earning his criminal justice degree.