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Coach Traylor talks to Rotarians about football and also life

For the ninth straight year, Buckeye Head Coach Jeff Traylor on Tuesday (Aug. 5) gave a preseason talk to the Gilmer Rotary Club. This year, he provided a deeply personal view of how he sees the role he and other coaches play.

The Gilmer varsity will be trying for an eighth straight district championship and a second state championship, the coach said.

But this is not the record he and the other coaches will be judged by, he added.

“My record will be decided 20 years from now,” he said, adding that a win for him will be if today’s players are leading constructive lives.

Traylor traced his current philosophy back to 1994, when he attended a Promise Keepers rally at the Astrodome in Houston and found his life changed. This put him on a mission to be a great father, and changed the way he coached, he said.

Two years ago, Gilmer lost a bi-district game to Liberty-Eylau, which Traylor saw as an inferior team, and was eliminated from the state playoffs. “God dropped me on my knees,” he said.

Subsequently he took his wife to a “coaches’ outreach” retreat that was aimed at helping wives understand a coach’s mission. While there, he passed out, hit his head and had to be hospitalized. He learned that stress was taking a toll, and he knew he had to slow down. And, he added, he knew he had to do a better job.

He began a Bible study for Gilmer coaches that meets at 6:15 a.m. each Friday. And he arranged for 13 coaches and their wives to attend one of the coaches’ outreach sessions.

He said the wives learned what it meant as football season starts, and he’s about to be gone for four months. “It’s a mission of ours,” he explained.

Coach Traylor said he believes many of today’s boys and girls are being left behind, not having a father’s influence.

“They need coaches to stand in for them,” he said.

Starting this season, he said, the Buckeyes “have lost a ton of players,” and they’re facing their toughest schedule ever.

The coach brought with him and introduced this year’s four co-captains, all seniors: Dakota Hagler, lineman; Hunter Harrison, wide receiver; Zack Jones, cornerback, and D.J. Stanley, cornerback.

He said these are the team’s leaders, and he meets with them after practice each Monday night.

The coach said he tells the Buckeyes that “pressure is a privilege.” He said the team is not about a single player dominating, no matter how good he is. All have a selfless attitude, he added, and this goes along with having coaches who try to play as many players as they can.

Traylor was introduced by Rotarian Randy McDaniel, who commented that coach Traylor has “put Gilmer back on the map.” But, he said, he also appreciated him for other things. He said extracurricular actvities have the ability to influence young people, and “it’s what the program leaves with the kid” that matters. He said Coach Traylor is putting out an excellent product, and deserves more credit for that.

Several members of the National League all Stars visited the club and presented President Randy Hill with a baseball signed by all members in appreciation for the club’s support in their trip to the Dixie Youth Baseball League state championship.



Mirror Photo
COACH JEFF TRAYLOR on the sideline at Buckeye Stadium in October 2000, his first year at the helm in Gilmer. The Buckeyes have not lost a district game since.



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