The Hall of Famers :: Blaine Taylor

If anyone was made for the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame, perhaps it's Blaine Taylor.

The former Griz basketball student-athlete and longtime coach will be enshrined on Friday evening, coming full circle with a career that allowed Taylor to spend the first 40 years of his life in the Garden City.

"I like to joke that the first four decades of my life were all within a few city blocks of each other," said Taylor, who was born in Butte, but moved to Missoula shortly after birth. He spent his entire adolescent age in Missoula, attending Hawthorne Elementary School before graduating from Hellgate High as the school's all-time career points leader. He then remained in Missoula, earning a scholarship to play for the Griz, before beginning a legendary coaching career at his alma mater.

"I don't know that you're ever ready for the reality of getting a call telling you that you're in the hall of fame," Taylor said. "I got off the phone and just stared out the window for a little while. It was pretty surreal.

"For me, I didn't just go to school or coach in Missoula, but I was raised there. As a little kid, we didn't have pro franchises, so the Grizzlies were the pro franchise for the region. I'd walk into the 4B's restaurant or other places as a 6, 8 year old and see all of these pictures on the wall – guys like Wild Bill Kelly – and these are action-figure-heroes to me.

"To be represented in the hall of fame of my alma mater – my hometown – man, that's pretty special."

Plenty gets made of Montana's coaching tree, and for good reason. Not many programs at any level – let alone Montana's – can boast two College Basketball Hall of Famers, not to mention former NBA coaches and several additional all-time greats.

Jud Heathcote is seen as the trunk of the tree – the architect – who jump-started Montana's success by taking the Grizzlies to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 1975. And while that is certainly true of the late Heathcote, perhaps no one has been as impactful as Taylor, who has touched nearly every branch of the tree in some form or fashion.

Before Heathcote left Montana to become a national-champion coach at Michigan State, he signed Taylor to be the Grizzlies' future point guard, his final signee in Missoula.

Next in the tree was Jim Brandenburg and Mike Montgomery; Taylor played for both during his time as a student-athlete. After earning his first of two degrees from Montana, Taylor got into coaching, where he first served as an assistant under Montgomery, before then working under Stew Morrill, Montgomery's successor.

Taylor worked five years under Morrill, culminating with a 1991 Big Sky title, before Morrill took the head job at Colorado State, which opened the door for Taylor to become Montana's 20^th head coach.

Taylor spent seven seasons as Montana's top guy, guiding the Grizzlies to 141 wins, including a school-record 27 victories in 1992, which culminated with a conference title and trip to the NCAA tournament. Today, Taylor is still the program's all-time winningest coach with a .680 winning percentage.

Even after Taylor left, however, he still had influence on the prominent coaching tree.

Larry Krystkowiak was a player during parts of Taylor's time as an assistant coach, and Taylor later hired Krystkowiak at Old Dominion, getting his coaching career – which at one point included a stint in the NBA – kick-started. Wayne Tinkle was also a player in the late 1980s, a time that overlapped Taylor's time on the Grizzly bench.

And then, of course, there's Travis DeCuire, who has led the Griz program since 2014-15.

DeCuire was recruited to Montana by Taylor, where he redshirted in 1990-91 (Taylor's final season as an assistant coach) and played the next three seasons with Taylor as his head coach. In 2003, Taylor – who has four daughters and refers to DeCuire as 'the son I never had' – gave DeCuire his first collegiate coaching job, hiring him as an assistant at Old Dominion.

"I shared a desk with (George) Jiggs Dahlberg," Taylor said. "I just found myself right in the middle of guys who were before me and behind me, and I was lucky enough to be around all of them. I kind of bridge the gap between the early years of the tree and the recent years."

Taylor had a strong playing career, leading the Grizzlies for assists in three consecutive seasons from 1979-81. As a senior, he was selected as the player who best represented Griz basketball, a season in which he also was his team's most inspirational player and earned All-Big Sky tournament honors.

But Taylor's biggest impact came on the sidelines.

After a lengthy assistant coaching career, he took over a strong program left by Morrill and took it to even higher heights.

During his first season, 1991-92, Taylor was named the Big Sky Coach of the Year after guiding the Grizzlies to 27 wins and an .871 winning percentage – both remain school records – and a trip back to the NCAA tournament after winning the Big Sky regular-season and tournament titles.

He posted three more 20-win seasons and never had a losing record during his seven-year stint as head coach. His .680 career winning percentage is a program record.

"I was planning on going to law school, but at the last minute I changed my mind," Taylor said. "The educators and coaches I've had throughout my life… I can still name them all going all the way back to little league. I had a math teacher in eighth grade who made being smart cool. Mike Montgomery, Stew Morrill, Robin Selvig were all fast friends who had really big influences on me.

"They made me think highly enough of educators and coaches that it made me reconsider my plan of going to law school."

As good as Taylor's head coaching career was, particularly the 1992 championship season, it's the 1991 season that Taylor remembers most when he reflects back to his time with the Grizzlies.

As a player, Taylor played in the Big Sky title game three times. He lost the championship each time.

In fact, as good as Montana's program was in the 1970s and 80s – Montana's only losing record during a 27-year stretch from 1972 (Heathcote's first) through 1998 (Taylor's final) was in 1976-77, when 11 wins were later vacated.

However, between 1976 and 1990, despite winning 66.5 percent of its games during that span, Montana was unable to make a return trip to the NCAA tournament. Montana finished runner-up in the regular season six straight years from 1981-86 and lost in the tournament title game five times during that span.

The number of times falling short is what made the breakthrough in 1991 so special, as Montana – the regular-season champion after going 13-3 – scored 109 points in a home semifinal win over Idaho State before beating Idaho, in front of a sold-out crowd, in the championship game.

"I had friends watching the game on TV and calling me about the celebration from our team," Taylor said. "For our players in 1991, it was just so genuine and authentic. We had some really, really great teams who didn't get to experience that, going through a 15-year drought, so because of that, none of my other championships can compare to that one."

Taylor took over the next year, winning his first eight games and 18 of his first 19. Montana lost just four games all year, repeating as Big Sky champs in the regular season and tournament before facing Florida State in the NCAA tournament.

"In 1992, we were so talented," Taylor said. "I inherited a great team and a great situation, and in fact, as soon as we won in 1992, while everyone was celebrating and in jubilation, I walked straight to my office and called Stew Morrill at Colorado State and thanked him for bringing me back as an assistant. The groundwork that he laid set the stage for what was to come, and I don't know that he gets enough credit."

Montana earned an NIT berth in 1995 and was back in the NCAA tournament again in 1997.

"I've been on four campuses and have won championships at each stop," Taylor said. "If I look up on my wall in my office, I have 11 big, gaudy rings, and yet when I played at Montana, we played in the Big Sky championship game three times and lost all three of them.

"I thought I learned a lot about winning from those years that we didn't win and that really set me up for success down the road."

After spending the first 40 years of his life in Missoula, Taylor left Montana with tears in his eyes for an opportunity to coach under Montgomery at Stanford. The Cardinal made the NCAA tournament in each of Taylor's three seasons, as he was part of the best stretch in Stanford basketball history, which included a No. 1 national ranking for six consecutive weeks and a 2001 Elite Eight berth.

He then got another head-coaching opportunity, taking over the reins of Old Dominion. There, he led the Monarchs to nine consecutive winnings seasons, four NCAA tournament berths, an NIT semifinal appearance and left in 2013 as the program's all-time winningest coach.

Taylor got one more opportunity to return to the sidelines a few years later, serving four seasons as an assistant coach at UC Irvine, again returning to the NCAA tournament in 2019.

After spending the first 40 years of his life in one place, the next two-plus decades have been a whirlwind, going from coast to coast, through triumphs and setbacks.

Today, Taylor is back in Norfolk, Virginia, where he works in the Old Dominion Foundation, working as a major gifts officer. He still returns to Montana once or twice per year and will always consider Missoula to be home.

"I travel throughout the country and people always ask me about Montana and what it's like, and I always first reference the people," Taylor said. "When people ask how you're doing, they actually stop and wait for your answer. There's a certain resilience, pride and toughness to Montanans. I don't know if it comes from the hard winters, forest fires or bear attacks, but Montanans are pretty hardy, and that's pretty neat to be considered a Montanan.

"I've had some slices of humble pie and some really low spots, but a lot of that resiliency is from my family and being a good, hardy Montana Grizzly."

Taylor will no-doubt enjoy reminiscing in Missoula this weekend, going to the football game and around town. He's eager to show his new fiancé the Treasure State and pay a visit to his late father, who is buried in Glacier National Park. He'll have three tables worth of family supporting him at Friday night's banquet.

"You know you're growing old when your regrets replace your dreams," Taylor said. "This is a dream come true, going home to Montana and being put into the hall of fame."

University of Montana Athletics

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