Notre Dame’s Aaron Taylor: More Than Just Talk
Note: This was a 2013 interview we conducted with 1990-93 Notre Dame offensive lineman and two-time consensus All-American Aaron Taylor, who on Monday became one of 11 players and two coaches selected to the 2021 College Football Hall of Fame class. Now 48, he was a founder of the Joe Moore Award, presented annually to the nation's top college football offensive line.
Media day prior to Notre Dame’s 1993 football season was highlighted by a powerful oration from senior offensive tackle Aaron Taylor, a consensus All-American the previous year and one of the team’s four captains.
With a captivating eloquence, the stentorian voice of Taylor spoke of brotherhood, commitment, sacrifice and a willingness to lay life and limb on the line for the team good.
The following day, after an arduous practice in 90-degree heat, an exhausted Taylor walked past the media contingent and stated, “Everything I told y’all yesterday, forget it!”
The gift of gab, mixed in with a wry, humorous touch comes naturally to Taylor, who since 2008 has been a game and studio analyst for CBS Sports. His oratory skills have also made him a popular public speaker on teamwork and performance at summits, corporate retreats or at universities.
“It was a way for me to stay connected to football,” Taylor said of his career path. “I didn’t want to be a coach. I wanted to control my own destiny in the hours and all the stress and pressures. Being on national TV has stress and pressure too, but it’s miniscule compared to what coaches go through.”
Taylor enjoys television production because it’s an offshoot of an offensive line working in harmony.
“It’s a team of people that have a four-hour window where there is this intensity, where we have to work together, and we somehow pull it together more times than not,” he said. “Being able to talk and speak from my heart on something is a gift that I have been given.
“I use that partially as an analyst on TV that people get to see, but there is a lot of ways I use that that people don’t get to see that isn’t public that I think I’m much better at than when I’m in front of a camera.”
Before The Glory
Growing up in northern California as the only child in a single-parent household and near the ghetto, Taylor said he started to live the “knucklehead” lifestyle that embraced reckless behavior and had law enforcement regularly nipping on his heels, including getting involved in a motorcycle theft.
When Taylor was 14, his mother Mardi, a registered nurse (who passed away three years ago) made the tough-love decision to kick him out of the house.
“I was just a kid that was lost and didn’t believe anything, didn’t have anybody but my mom that believed in me,” he said. “I needed some direction, and once she kicked me out of the house because I was out all night doing things a 14-year-old shouldn’t be doing, it was a wake-up call.”
Five days later after living with some friends, Taylor returned home with defined dreams academically and athletically. There was a zero-tolerance mandate from Mardi when it came to straying from such aspirations.
“She asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I want to play pro football,” Taylor said. “That night there was a story on TV about the school across the Bay in Concord, Calif. — De La Salle.”
It was one of the nation’s elite football superpowers.
“Fortuitous things happened from there,” Taylor said. “Mom found a job there, and knew a lady right down the street from the school with a house for rent … All this crazy stuff in the universe just opened up. Then I started to find out the harder I worked the better I got.”
A consensus high school All-America, Taylor in 1992-93 became the 16th — and still most recent — two-time consensus All-American in Notre Dame history, first at guard and then tackle. Those Irish teams won 17 consecutive games (the second-longest Irish streak since 1950), beat 12-0 and 10-1 Texas A&M outfits in the Cotton Bowl, and in 1993 he was the recipient of the Lombardi Award.
The first-round draft pick went on to earn millions in the NFL, managed his money wisely and even started every game at guard for the 1996 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers. Knee problems finally ended his football career at the turn of the century, which led to his first stint in television, with ABC.
Beyond The Glory
At age 28 Taylor was a retired millionaire, a renowned champion, a home owner with zero debt, offers for a television career … and completely unfulfilled internally.
“It was 15 minutes of fame that I didn’t necessarily want, and after time, it was money that I didn’t need,” Taylor said of the two-year contract he signed with ABC.
Although the network liked his work and wanted him full time that included a move to Bristol, Conn., Taylor walked away. He donated his entire salary in his second year to create the Aaron Taylor Impact Fund, a 501(c)(3) charity, all third-party audited, with no personal use even though his donations have doubled it, and is managed through the San Diego Foundation.
Studies have shown that a majority of retired professional athletes are either divorced, bankrupt or involved in substance abuse shortly after stepping down from their glamour stage. For Taylor, the first two were not issues as a single man with accrued wealth, but…
“I had battled depression and anxiety and was using negative coping strategies of drinking large quantities of tasty, frosty beverages,” he said candidly. “The lowest common denominator of what was going wrong in all the situations of my life was me. That set about the process of self-discovery and humility.
“I went through a mid-life crisis at the end of my 20s and was forced to answer the question much earlier than I wanted to: ‘Who am I, what do I want and what am I about?’”
In the spring of 2001 Taylor participated in a five-month volunteer placement program and taught English to high school students in South America. He later won awards for his post-tsunami work in Sri Lanka, mentoring children, and as a transition support specialist for the NFL Players Association.
The days with head coach Lou Holtz and line coach Joe Moore still resonated.
“Great coaches are great teachers, and that’s what Coach Holtz was and Coach Moore was,” Taylor said. “They taught us how to be men, they taught us that we’re capable of doing more than we think we can, that we’re tougher than we think we are.”
Married since 2008 to wife Lina Yanchulova, a former Bulgarian Olympic beach volleyball athlete, his greatest joy has been as a husband and a father to two sons, now reaching adolescence, and a daughter. The Taylors relocated to New York in 2013 for his work but still rent in San Diego.
“All those demons that I fought, I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my life,” Taylor said. “My wife and my children are very big reasons for that. I’ve out-kicked my coverage in about every aspect of my life. I’m the luckiest flipping dude I’ve ever met.”
The harder he worked, the more fulfilled and happier he became. It was never just talk.
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