NO SURRENDER
WHEN defensive lineman Charrod Taylor was with the Giants in training camp last summer, he would say a prayer every night.
Taylor didn’t make it to the NFL and now plays for the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League. Each night, though, without fail, the 28-year-old Taylor repeats that prayer.
He is not praying for personal success or another opportunity to make the NFL. He is praying for those who were killed aboard the USS Cole when the ship was attacked by terrorists in Yemen in 2000.
Those were Taylor’s shipmates.
Taylor was a sailor stationed on the Aegis guided-missile destroyer and probably would have been killed, if not for a last-second order.
An operations specialist in communications and radar, Taylor was going to lunch with one of his best friends on the ship, Timothy Saunders, when he was reminded by an officer that he had duties to complete before he could be relieved. That order saved his life.
Saunders and 16 other sailors were killed in the suicide attack in the Port of Aden when terrorists steered a small craft filled with explosives alongside the ship’s galley.
“I say a prayer for those guys every night,” Taylor says in a strong, deep voice. “Memorial Day is a special day. You take the time to honor those who served their country, past and present, who put their life on the line, who are no longer with us, and for those who have been affected greatly by their experience in the military.
“You also take the time to support those who are over there now, fighting.”
Few current professional athletes have served their country. Not many have come as close to death has Taylor did while in service. Taylor admits there have been some difficult times dealing with what he calls “the situation.”
Most of all, he says, “You try to keep busy and deal with people who are uplifting and positive. You try not to focus too much on the negative things in life. I feel like if you focus on the negative things, that kind of brings back up the bad things and the bad situations and they all run together. The more positive I stay of living my life, the better chance I will have of not thinking about the fact that I almost died.”
By coming so close to a “near-death situation,” he says, “It kind of makes you wonder: What’s your true purpose here? Why did you get a second chance? I think God has definitely let me have a second chance so I can have a chance to do something good or great with my life.”
After serving four years in the Navy, Taylor enrolled at Georgia Southern, where he played Division 1-AA football. He joined the Navy because he saw it as the best way to pay for college. He is several credits short of a kinesiology degree. He says he will go back to school.
“Down the road I would love to train people and just kind of uplift them, because everybody doesn’t have to be big and cut-up and ripped,” he says. “They just want to work out and be healthy and feel good and live life. That is my goal: to help people.”
You would think there would be a place for Taylor, 28, on an NFL roster, especially in light of some of the questionable characters making money in the league. The 6-foot-2, 286-pounder is not about to give up.
“I’m still learning,” says Taylor, who suffered a stress fracture in his foot with the Giants. “I’m looking forward to a new beginning.”
TV viewers will get to see Taylor when Colorado plays host to the New York Dragons on June 2 in an ESPN game.
In training camp he recognized the Giants had the right stuff to become Super Bowl champions.
“Man, those guys were good and the chemistry was nice going into training camp,” Taylor says. “The intensity, the enthusiasm to win, everything was there. I’m not surprised that they won the Super Bowl.”
The joy of his life is his 4-year-old daughter, Kameron.
“My beautiful little girl,” he says. So, when she is old enough, how will the father explain to his daughter about his experience in the Navy?
“I’ll just tell her Daddy did what he had to do,” Taylor says. “My primary focus was to get money for college, and at the time the Navy was offering the best deal, but I had the chance to fight for my country and do something good for my country.
“It was a chance to give back, and not receive all the time.”
And then, at the end of that day, like every day, he will say a prayer for those who gave so much more.
