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Two state trophy wins in the Taylor family

By Sarah A. Wise

NL Staff Writer

Like all the other Aycock parents, Randy Taylor felt a sense of pride as he watched his son Bradley play in the NC 3A baseball state championships last month. But Randy also experienced a little bit of déjà vu looking out on the diamond.

Thirty-three years ago, Randy was standing where his son stood on that warm June Saturday, playing centerfield for another Falcon squad vying for the state title. He was a member of the 1974 Falcon baseball team, the only other team in school history to earn a state championship title.

“It brought back a lot of memories,” Randy said.

Bradley and Randy are the first father-son duo in Wayne County history to have both played on a state championship-winning team, according to information presented to the Wayne County Board of Education. Though Randy said he was aware that he had one of the youngest sons of any of the original team members, he didn’t know until after it was all over that he and Bradley were the only father and son in the history of the county to share such an honor.

“It makes you wonder how many people in the state can say that,” he said. “I’m sure it’s not that many.”

Going into a championship series with a father who had helped earn a state title might be intimidating for some. But Bradley said that he just went into the game knowing that he and the other players had to come home with the title.

“We just knew we had to go up there and win it,” he said. “It’s all we had been talking about all year, especially around my house.”

Talk of a possible trip to the championships lingered around the Falcons often, especially as the post-season drew near. As the Falcons entered the final rounds of regional competition, Randy said other members of his team joined him in the stands to cheer on the Falcons.

“A lot of us were at the Northern Nash game,” he said. “During the last few games, several of them would pop up. At the last game there were seven or eight of us there.”

Randy and Bradley both agree that it’s precisely that kind of community support that lends the Aycock baseball team its strength. In addition to being a tradition carried on in families like the Taylors, Aycock baseball is a family in itself.

“Each group has different ones in there, but it’s always the same kind of team,” he said. “You grow up together, playing together on the same teams – that’s just the way it is.”

Even as many aspects of the community change with the rapid growth northern Wayne County has seen in the past few years, this aspect of Aycock life remains unchanged.

Bradley and his teammates have, like the generations before them, grown up playing together on various teams, and have learned not only how to play as individual players, but how to work together as a team. He credits that factor as one of the major strengths of the team.

“That’s one reason why we’re so good,” he said. “We were all raised up together, and we know how to work with each other.”

As for continuing the family tradition into a third generation, Bradley says that he’s too young to imagine himself with a son on the Aycock squad. However, he said that it would be nice to watch a son play on the same team as him.

Randy agrees, saying he had joked around with Bradley about the same topic.

“I told him that I’d provided a son who could help win a state championship, and he’d better be able to do it to,” he said.

“Yeah, there’s no pressure there,” said Bradley with a laugh.

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