Kyle Taylor finished his fourth year as the head coach of the Covenant College men’s basketball team. During the time that Taylor has been here the team has increased the win total each year, and is steadily becoming a quality basketball program on the court.

Coach Taylor is encouraged by the improvements he has seen in the program each year. He is insistent about changing the culture of the program and focused on developing his guys into godly men on and off the court. Meekness, Servanthood, Accountability, Discipline, and Passion are the core values Taylor has implemented for the men’s basketball program over the past three years. He feels blessed by the opportunities he has had to communicate with some great recruits and enjoyed the opportunity to coach many of them.

On the court, Taylor is committed to working toward developing a team that is a successful regional power each year. He is passionate about coaching a team that is exciting to watch, competitive, disciplined, up tempo offensively, and great in transition play. The final year (2012-13 season) of transition into the NCAA Division III will be used as another year to develop the team into a strong contender for when Covenant joins the USA South for the 2013-14 season.

The men’s basketball program is committed first to developing players that represent Christ on and off the court. As young men who will graduate and go into all kinds of disciplines, the coaching staff believes it is important that players learn to represent Christ, Covenant College, their academics, and their families with class. The basketball program at Covenant is therefore both a place to understand how to play competitive basketball for the glory of God and also develop into godly men who will continue to be used for Kingdom work upon graduating.

An important part of the basketball program during Coach Taylor’s time at Covenant has been the opportunity to travel on missions trips in order to use basketball as a tool for sharing the Gospel with others. In May 2011, Taylor took his team to Greece, and in August 2012, several of his players traveled to Newark, New Jersey to conduct basketball clinics and share the Gospel. The team plans to travel on a missions trip to Costa Rica in December 2012.

Record for the men’s program over the past four years:

2008-09: 2-29 (year before Taylor started)

2009-10: 3-22

2010-11: 6-21

2011-12: 8-18

2012-13: 14-12

Coach Taylor is a native of Salinas, CA. Taylor graduated from UCLA in 2005 with a double major in Business/Economics and Political Science. He received his M.S. in Health and Physical Education from Northwest Missouri State in 2008.

Previous Coaching Experience:

2005-06: Pepperdine University (Video Coordinator)

2006-07 California State-Northridge (Director of Basketball Operation / Interim 3rd Assistant)

2007-08 William Jewell College (Assistant Basketball Coach)

2008-09: Minnesota State-Moorhead (Assistant Basketball Coach)

Kyle and his lovely wife Shannon have two children (Kade and Quinn), and reside on Lookout Mountain. They are members at Rock Creek Fellowship.