Farmington thriving with Taylor-made success

Coach Johnny Taylor relying on his son’s leadership to propel the Cardinals

By Steve Andrews | Photos by Sadie Rucker

In his 22 years roaming the sideline, Johnny Taylor has amassed more than 450 wins and earned two state basketball championships, at two different schools. Now, the second-year Farmington head coach is hoping to add a third to the legacy.

The Cardinals are off to a blazing 22-1 start, undefeated with a 10-0 mark in the 1-4A Conference and currently riding a 14-game win streak. But his biggest advantage this time around is the relationship he has with his point-guard — a kid he has known since birth.

Averaging nearly 30 points per game as a 5-foot-10 sophomore this season, the coach’s son, Layne Taylor, is proving to be a jack-of-all-trades on the hardwood. He has topped 40 points three times this season and exploded for a Farmington school-record 61 in a 73-62 win over Huntsville on Jan. 14. 

But the 16-year-old’s prowess as an all-around floor general, despite battling a high ankle sprain, was evident in last month’s 72-38 rout of rival Prairie Grove, when he scored just 13 points but contributed seven assists, eight steals and four rebounds in one half of play, before being replaced in the blowout win by some younger players.

“The great thing is, he has played in my system since seventh grade and he knows exactly how I want things done, and he is able to do that and get all of his teammates involved,” the coach said. “A good player makes himself better, but a great player makes everyone around him better. And that’s what I’m proud of Layne for, because he is a good teammate.

“I have often seen coaches’ sons create such a distraction, and it just looks miserable for everyone. But we don’t have that, because I think Layne is just such a good kid, on and off the court, and he just wants to be a part of the team. And we have got a group of great kids here.”

Dad admits that he is probably harder on his son than anyone else on the team, yet the two of them have a deep understanding of each other and a common goal in mind.

“He doesn’t care how many points he has as long as we are successful as a team,” Coach Taylor said. “The most important stat to him is winning. And that’s what I love about Layne the most. And at the end of the day, when we go home, he knows that I love him, and I’m just trying to get him to be the best version of himself.”

A former high school and college point guard himself, Coach Taylor essentially put a ball in his son’s hands at birth, as he and his wife, Morgan, have raised both of their boys — Layne and 12-year-old Press — to play for the love of the game.

“When Layne was very young, we set up a little goal and when he would put the ball in the hoop we would cheer and he would light up, so that’s when he really started falling in love with the game,” the father recalled. “And then through the years, he spent a lot of time with me at my practices and going to games, so he has always been around the game of basketball.”

The elder Taylor acknowledges he has always been a basketball junkie, too, beginning with his own high school playing career at Evening Shade High School in Northeast Arkansas, playing for coach Robin Killian. He transferred to Highland after his sophomore year, under the tutelage of coach Ronnie Brockton. After graduating in 1996, he took his talents to Hendrix College, where he played for legendary coach Cliff Garrison and earned a degree in Kinesiology and Coaching in 2000.

“All three of the guys I played for were all really good coaches, and they were all really good at different things,” he explained. “So, I got exposed to a lot of different things when I played, then as a coach, you try to take the best of what you learned from each program and utilize the things that worked.”

His freshman year at Hendrix, the Warriors reached No. 8 in the nation, and Taylor didn’t see the court. But it taught him to be patient, and he became the starting point guard the following season.

“I tell the kids all the time, that you have to stay ready, because you never know when your name or your number is going to get called,” he said.

Once he realized his playing skills wouldn’t take him much farther than Hendrix, he set his sight on coaching.

“Coach Garrison taught me so much, and I just remember loving the philosophies of the game, and always wanting to understand the things he did and why he thought the way he did,” Taylor said. ”He was just great at explaining the game of basketball from a coaching standpoint. So, that’s when I knew I wanted to be a coach.”

One of the biggest lessons he took from Garrison was the “notebook system,” which he still uses today. That includes each player keeping a notebook with all the plays and sets, as well as a journal that includes a daily thought and emphasis of the day.

“Every day, our goal is to write something, watch something and do something,” he said. “It keeps us well-rounded.”

Taylor took his first coaching job in 2001, at the age of 22, leading the girls program at Rose Bud High School. Two years later he became the boys head coach at Weiner, a small high school southwest of Jonesboro. In his first season at the helm of the Cardinals boys team, he won his first state championship and was named the state’s Class 1A Coach of the Year. After two seasons, he became a graduate assistant at Harding University, while receiving his master’s degree in Educational Leadership.

He returned to Weiner for one more season before getting hired as the boys coach at Rose Bud, where he took the school to its first state tournament his first year. His second season, he led the Ramblers to an undefeated 36-0 record, won his second state championship, and was named 2007-08 Class 3A State Coach of the Year.

He then guided Siloam Springs to the state semifinals in 2011 before leaving to coach his alma mater, Highland. He has had nine jobs in all, including stints at Pangburn, Valley Springs and Caddo Hills. 

Then in 2018, he got a call from Star City Superintendent of Schools Jon Laffoon, a former Hendrix alum, who offered him the Bulldogs head coaching job. Taylor took the job, but two years later, Laffoon left to take the Superintendent job at Farmington.

So, when former Farmington boys coach Bo Thompson decided in 2020 to step down to take the Cardinals’ athletics director position, Laffoon needed a replacement and called Taylor once again. The coach hopes this is his final career destination.

“I loved working for Mr. Laffoon, so basically I hooked my wagon to him,” Taylor said. “He is someone I really respect, so when he called and asked me to come interview, I ended up taking the job. In the coaching world, you have to have the support of your administration, and I know I have that with Mr. Laffoon. He wants you to win, but he wants you to do it the right way. He has created such a good experience for me and my family.”

And it is a family affair for the Taylors, as the coach’s wife, Morgan, keeps the book for all the Cardinal games — in addition to being a constant moral supporter for her husband and son.

“I have to give her a lot of credit, because she signed up to be a coach’s wife, willing to move to wherever we needed to go, and has just been encouraging the whole way,” Coach Taylor said. “She has been my rock, for sure.”

He said having his son orchestrating his gameplan is also a big advantage — likening it to having an extension of himself on the court.

“Whenever Layne was growing up and I would take a new job, I always took him with me, and when I would introduce our footwork and how I wanted things done, I would use Layne to demonstrate it,” he said. “So, every place I went, and when he started playing on my junior high team in seventh grade at Star City, he knew exactly how I wanted things done. I’ve always been proud of Layne’s intent study of the game, even at an early age.”

Layne still remembers all those road trips with his dad, and how he fell in love with the game. That work ethic he developed early is still what drives him to continue improving. He works on drills and takes more than 500 shots each day.

“I’ve just always been around the game of basketball, and it’s helped me a ton, just seeing all kinds of situations and how to handle everything,” he said. “I’ve been able to see a lot of games and a lot of players, and I’ve tried to take the good attributes I’ve seen from different players and try to apply them to my game.

“I’ve been around a lot of teams with winning attitudes and winning atmospheres, and that allows me to try to bring those same things to our team. Our practices are so competitive that you have no other option but to get better. And my teammates are always pushing me, and vice versa, so that is always a great advantage.”

Layne chuckles when asked about playing for his dad but is quick to say he loves their relationship and constantly being pushed to his limits.

“That part has never been difficult for me, because I’m a very competitive person, too, and I love the way he challenges me in practice and in games to step up my game,” he added. “I’ve been around him my whole life, so I know what his expectations are and what I need to do.

“Sometimes when we play other teams, they will call me ‘daddy’s boy’ or whatever. But that just gets me going even more.”

The young Taylor has already received college offers from the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and UA-Monticello but has put those on the back burner for now.

“All I’m concerned about right now is what I can do to make our team better, and preparing for each game,” he said. “We play harder than any team we play, and this team is extremely unselfish. We don’t care who scores or gets the glory, as long as we continue to win games. I think we have what it takes to win the state championship.”

With no starter taller than 6-1 junior Caleb Blakely, the Cardinals are usually at a size disadvantage. So, they have to find other ways to even the playing field, which seems to play into Coach Taylor’s hands.

“We don’t necessarily have the biggest team or the best athletes in the world, but our kids make up for that with how hard they work and how intelligent they are on the court,” he said. “And we try to bring our kids up in that culture, where they know they can just outwork other teams. We also try to teach the fundamentals of the game, to take a kid and raise his ceiling of play.”

With the conference season winding down, Taylor knows the road is going to get a lot tougher heading into the playoffs.

“We’re going to face some really good teams as we move on,” he said. “But if we continue to play hard and compete at the level we are capable of, I think we can play with anyone right now.

“That’s why we play the games, right?”