Outstanding Student Athlete: Akyah Taylor

February 17, 2011|By DAVID MCCOY, WSBT-TV Reporter

Akyah Taylor is the kind of player that can carry a team through the postseason on her back.

"She is the dominant player around,” Chargers coach Larry Fielstra said. “She lifts the level, she makes our good kids great, she makes our great kids even better."

Which is why one Division I college coach said Elkhart Memorial will go as far as she can take them.

“His comment to me was, ‘if your team can take on Akyah's personality… then you guys are gonna do some great things,’" Fielstra said.

That personality is relentless hard work.

"She's been the hardest playing kid we've ever had,” Fielstra said.

"I know there's somebody out there working just as hard as me. Or even harder. And I know the next day is not promised to anybody,” Taylor said. “So I know I gotta keep working each day to get better."

All that work paid off earlier this season, when Taylor set Memorial's all-time career scoring mark. But her mark on the program goes far beyond scoring.

"We've had some great ones come through here. But as far as just natural athletic ability, and playing both ends of the floor, and transition, and leading, we've never had the combination that Akyah possesses,” Fielstra said. "She's going to be the standard for our younger kids.”

Next season, Taylor will be playing at Michigan State. When it's all said and done, she says the legacy she'd like to leave behind is to always work hard. But there's one thing she'd like even more to leave behind.

A banner.

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