Ollie Taylor Battled All the Giants at Just 6-2
Ollie Taylor rode the bench in high school before jumping center against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in college and playing against Julius Erving and Rick Barry in the ABA. Along the way, he set numerous National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) records while leading San Jacinto to the 1968 national title. Taylor followed that up by lifting Houston to a Sweet 16 appearance in 1970. Owner of a 46 inch vertical leap, Taylor dazzled fans from Rucker Park to the ABA with his spectacular dunks. You can read all about Taylor's career in my HoopsHype.com article about him:Battling Giants at 6-2
posted by David Friedman @ 5:11 PM
6 Comments:
Great article, David. All I knew about Ollie Taylor was from the writeups in the old Pro Basketball Handbooks. Thanks for another insight into a lesser known ABA player.
Thanks a million for your article, David. I grew up on LI and was thrilled to have seen Ollie Taylor in action at the Commack arena and on WPIX-telivised games with Marty Glickman doing the play-by-play.
It was an amazing era and my brother and I always thought very highly of Ollie. In addition, during the summer, various Nets players performed a PR role for the club, going to local parks on Long Island to conduct clinics for interested kids, and we were very fortunate to get two up-close looks at our 6'2" hero, who amazed us with some of his awesome dunks.
My brother was also able to play in a 2 on 2 pickup game with a college star against Ollie and a friend he brought out from the Bronx one night at a park "under the lights" and I can still remember how Ollie ultimately took things under control to win the game.
I also remember seeing Ollie fly in on a fast break and slam right over Artis Gilmore in a WPIX-televised game one evening. He just blew right over Artis, exploded - one of the best dunks I ever saw in my life!
I'd just like to thank you again for the article and say that I was so glad to hear about N°22. I hope things are going well for Ollie and would like to thank him for being such a great guy. Thanks for the memories, Ollie!
I was a HUGE Ollie Taylor fan as a kid. I used to go see him play quite often back in th early 70's. As a 9 year old I was floored by some of his dunks....I copied them with my nerf ball in the basement. My father was good friends with Pete Vescey the Daily News Sportswriter so he used to hook us up with game tickets all the time. During Ollie's final season with the NETS he got me into the locker room to meet him....it was a dream come true. It was a moment that I always remember and mention to my kids from time to time. As I walked out of the locker after meeting Ollie and the rest of the team(Rick Barry, Billy Paultz,Trooper Washington, Gene Moore, Jim Ard, john Baum, Bill Melchioni & John Roche) we ran into a newcomer in the hallway from the Virginia Squires....Pete yells out "Hey Julius, I'd like you to say hello to a friend of mine". Those ABA days were GREAT MEMORIES!!! I wish we still had basketball like that on Long Island,
Ollie used to come to CT with Calvin Murphy (hometown is Norwalk) to play exhibition games. Ollie's pre-game dunks were some of the most amazing athletics I've ever seen. Rob mentions his dunk over Artis Gilmore - still the greatest dunk I've ever seen - 6-2 flying power jam straight over 7-2 - talk about shock value. I think of Ollie every time the All-Star dunk contest comes up. No one ever comes close - a sort of mix of Spud Webb (short) and Blake Griffin (power). The greatest.
Great Story - Never heard of Ollie until today. Your HoopsHype story brought him to life for me. What he had to say about Spencer Haywood is very special.
Clarence:
Thank you and welcome to 20 Second Timeout.
I think that you will be interested in an article that I wrote at my other website:
"Black Magic": Must-See TV
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