Joe Bendel: There's A Lot To Like About Ike

Ike Taylor swats away a Steve McNair pass intended for Titans receiver Drew Bennett in the season opener.

Joe Bendel

PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Before there was the lockdown of Chad Johnson and the knockdown of a sure touchdown against the Jacksonville Jaguars, there was the tire, the rabbit and Deion Sanders for Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor.

"He's done a lot and been through a lot to get where he is today," said Taylor's uncle, Herman Francois, who raised Ike on the outskirts of New Orleans since the seventh grade. "It's been a long road."
And a road less traveled.

Francois assisted in developing Taylor into the speedster (clocked at 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash) he is today with, arguably, the most unconventional workout program in modern history.
To build power in Taylor's thighs, hips and hamstrings, Francois sat in a truck tire each night and had a pre-teenage Taylor pull him with a rope wrapped around his waist for 2-3 miles. Francois wouldn't let Taylor quit until he was on the verge of passing out.

"Then, I would give him some water and tell him, 'Son, it's the fourth quarter now, so you have to keep on going,'" Francois said. "It'd be 2 in the morning and we'd be out there doing this."
But the training didn't end there.

To give Taylor an understanding of the dimensions of a regulation football field, Francois would line the ground near his home with baking flour at 5-yard increments.
"I didn't know how else to make the stripes. I didn't know where to buy the stuff they use on real football fields," Francois said. "But it worked. I had him stride those lines. I'd say, 'Son, if you can stretch along those lines, you're going to be faster.'"

Before long, Francois' nephew was the fastest kid in Harvey, La. But there was still one more challenge.

The rabbit.

To find out how swift Taylor was, Francois oversaw Taylor-and-the-hare races. He would have Taylor line up in a three-point stance on one side and have the rabbit in the cage on the other.
"I won't tell you if he ever caught that rabbit," Francois said, slyly. "You can be the judge."
Taylor claims the rabbit always got away, but just by a hare, er, hair.
"Almost got him a few times," Taylor said.

Hanging Chad

There was no "almost" about it when it came to covering the talented Johnson in a 27-13 win over the Bengals last Sunday in Cincinnati. The star wideout finished with four receptions for 94 yards, a total that included a meaningless 47-yard catch in the waning moments.
Coach Bill Cowher raved about his third-year cornerback moments after the game, as did Johnson, who said, "Ike Taylor is very good. I came into the game thinking it would be very easy, to tell you the truth. And he made me go into my bag of tricks, which is a good thing for the opponent. Therefore, he's in a class of his own."

And to think, when the Steelers used a fourth-round draft pick on Taylor, they had no idea what they were getting from the former Louisiana-Lafayette star.

Today, he's seen himself go from project to potential performer to possible Pro Bowler.
"I don't want to think about anything other than our next game against Baltimore," said Taylor, who interacts with his fans on his Web site, facemeike.com. "That's where my focus has to be. I haven't done anything yet."

Humility, thy name is Ike Taylor.

"That's the way he was - and he always will be," Francois said.

Eye opener

Once Taylor proved he could survive Francois' unconventional workout methods, he was free to train in the conventional world.

That's where renowned speed and agility trainer Tom Shaw entered the picture. Francois read an article about the New Orleans-based Shaw, who's trained 76 first-round NFL draft picks, and soon introduced him to Taylor.

"He was a sophomore in high school when he came here, and we timed Ike in the 40," said Shaw, who counts Eli and Peyton Manning among the countless NFL stars who swear by his methods. "He ran a 4.38. Jaws dropped. I just said, 'This kid is going to be blazing fast.'"

The next thing Taylor knew, he was training with and around some of the top players in the NFL, including Ravens cornerback Deion Sanders, who will be on the opposite sideline against the Steelers on Monday night at Heinz Field.

It was Sanders who gave Taylor a window into pro football, of how his work ethic and attention to detail separated him from so many others.

"He'd start off some of the drills I was in, and I'd just watch, see what he was doing," Taylor said. "I was just trying to learn what I could from him."

But it's not like Taylor needed many lessons in the areas of work and sacrifice. He left his mother, Cora, who was raising three children on her own in Raleigh, N.C., and moved to Louisiana with his aunt and uncle.

It was a difficult decision for a seventh-grader, but one that had a two-pronged effect: It would ease the financial burden for Cora, a licensed cosmetologist; and it would reunite Taylor with an abundance of family members in his birthplace of New Orleans.

Cora, though, remained -- and still remains -- a guiding influence in her son's life. "Ike's a very quiet, determined and optimistic kid," Cora Taylor said. "And he knew what he wanted to do at the age of 5, which is, play football."

Heavy hitter, playmaker

Taylor, 6-foot-1, 191 pounds, is playing well on a Super Bowl contender. He emerged from training camp as the clear-cut starter at left cornerback, and is making the Steelers scouting department look like geniuses every time he sets foot on the field.
He hits, evidenced by his 44 tackles in six games.

He makes big plays, evidenced by his touchdown-saving deflection of a 32-yard pass to Jaguars wideout Jimmy Smith in an eventual overtime loss at Heinz Field.

The play displayed Taylor's closing speed and field presence.

But he still has a lot to learn, evidenced by the unnecessary roughness penalty in Sunday's game for body-slamming Johnson.
Taylor, however, has made great strides, considering he played only one season of defensive back in college.

"Ike has had to work to get to this point," Cowher said Tuesday. "There are still times that I feel like he relaxes. In this business, you can't relax on any one play."
Taylor realizes that.
"You keep working, keep trying to get better," he said. "I want to be the best football player I can be."

Life and football

Francois always kept the football dream alive for Taylor, while also teaching Taylor about life outside of the game.

The two worked overnight shifts for Francois' maintenance business. That meant being at a job site at 10 p.m. and working until 5 a.m. Taylor did everything from janitorial services to painting, to carpentry, until he eventually became a foreman, who oversaw up to 15 workers.
"And he never complained. He just did his work, went to school, played his sports," Francois said. "It wasn't always easy, but he wouldn't let you know it."

In between cleaning restaurant bathrooms and going to class, there was football. Taylor loved football.

"He went to the library one time, picked up a Sports Illustrated and said, 'Mom, you just might see me on the cover of this magazine one day,'" Cora Taylor said. "I told him, 'Son, I know you can do it.'"

At Abramson High, Taylor played nearly every position. He had 18 sacks as a senior defensive end and ran roughshod as a halfback in the Wing-T offense. He also played kicker and receiver.
But he rarely played defensive back.

He played football at tiny Division I-A Louisiana-Lafayette University, but only for two seasons. He sat out his first two years to focus on academics before joining the team and playing tailback as a junior. He ran for 323 yards on 70 carries.

Then, in his only year as a cornerback, he paired with Charles Tillman, an eventual second-round pick by the Bears in 2002, and scouts began to take notice.

Most Louisiana-Lafayette opponents threw away from Tillman and toward Taylor, who was typically up for the task.

"I think that was the best thing for his NFL future," Shaw said. "People saw what this kid could do."

Next came a number of eye-opening workouts for NFL scouts at Louisiana-Lafayette, and the rest is history. Well, almost.

"People haven't come close to seeing what he can do," Francois said. "They've got one of the hardest working kids around there in Pittsburgh. Ike doesn't take vacations. He stays up there and works and he comes here and works with Tom Shaw. He doesn't need a vacation; he has too much work to do.

"The Pittsburgh Steelers got a special young man there. Ike comes home to this day and tells me, 'You need a break. I'm going out and working for you today.' And he does. It's all just beginning for him. There's a lot more Ike's going to do, believe it."

Joe Bendel can be reached at joecbendel@aol.com or (412) 320-7811.