CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The summer before her senior year at Meigs County High School, Taylor Boggess and her sisters Morgan and Macie really wanted a pool in their backyard.
Their father, Jeff, had a solution: Dig it yourself.
He went out and bought the gravel and mulch, then made the three sisters lay rocks down so it wouldn’t flood. Then he made them dig three ditches, which they worked on daily for about a month.
Actually, after the girls had completed the first two, Jeff went to a family member’s house and grabbed a digger, electing to dig the final hole himself, a task he completed in about 30 seconds.
“We’re like, ‘What the heck? Why did we just do all this work when we had this digger?'” Taylor Boggess recalled Tuesday. “He was like, ‘That’s teaching you a lesson. Look at all this hard work you’ve done; you can say “I dug a ditch” now.
“He was teaching us a lesson. Life isn’t easy; you can’t just go get a digger for everyone of your problems. You’re going to have to really work at some of them and dig your own ditch and sometimes dig your way out of it.”
Not long after that, Taylor signed to play basketball for Lee University, where the 5-foot-9 senior guard has helped the Lady Flames to a 26-4 record and a spot in the NCAA Division II national tournament, which begins this weekend. Lee was awarded the No. 1 seed in the South Region and will face Alabama-Huntsville at 5 p.m. Friday at Paul Dana Walker Arena.
But not every story has a perfect ending. Jeff died of cancer on Oct. 27, 2018, but he had instilled a “never-give-up” mentality in his daughters. The going wasn’t easy early on for Taylor, because she had to find a role on the Lee team. A career 2,000-point scorer in high school, she averaged just 3.6 points per game as a freshman. That number jumped to 5.5 as a sophomore, 8.2 as a junior and the 9.2 she’s averaging this season.
“What was great about Taylor in that initial year is that once she kind of figured out what we needed her to do, she hasn’t stopped growing,” Lee coach Marty Rowe said. “Not every freshman is like that, but she’s had a great senior year, she’s had a great junior year, she was really good down the stretch in her freshman year and even her sophomore year.
“Just that growth, to see her grow as a person is one of the greatest things that I’ve ever been able to witness. She’s one of my favorite players that I’ve ever had here just because of her toughness and how she was raised.
“I’m thrilled for her. I’m thrilled for her success.”
Were there frustrating times early on? Sure, but there was no way Boggess was quitting. She didn’t quit digging ditches in the summer of 2015, and she wasn’t going to quit now.
“That summer definitely taught me not to give up,” she said. “It was so hot some days, and I’m super competitive with my sisters. So if they’re sweating and they’re saying they’re tired, I’m not going to give up first and say, ‘All right, let’s go in and get some water.’ I think that’s taught me to not give up and to be super persistent, because hard work does pay off eventually. And that’s the mindset he had for me, and I think that definitely helped me here because it taught me that even though it seems like nothing is going right for me, hard work will eventually pay off.
“I think that and I can see that now.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.