Leading the 2023 USA Women’s U19 National Team to a gold medal, Joni Taylor has taken up her USA Basketball assignment as an assistant coach for the 2024 USA Basketball Women’s National Team alongside Mike Thibault and Kara Lawson. This is the same coaching squad that led the USA to a gold medal at the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup.

Coaching her second season at Texas A&M, Taylor is a product of the University of Alabama, who led the Crimson Tide to two NCAA Tournaments and two Women’s National Invitation Tournaments. Let’s explore her story and how she turned to coaching.

Joni Taylor finding her path

The Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year for home state, Crenshaw-Taylor led Meridian High School’s Lady Wildcats to a 67-7 record in her junior and senior seasons. While there, she also attended several basketball camps and built the confidence to become what she is today. However, basketball was not the only sport Taylor tried to master, as she also won three state titles in track and field during high school. Also, she somehow managed to become the school’s Homecoming Queen.

Not only that, Taylor is also grateful to her Alma Mater. “To have my name on a court that has anything to do with Velma Young is just incredible. I grew up knowing the Young family,” said Joni Crenshaw Taylor when the Meridian was invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony in her honor at the Velma Young Park Basketball courts last June. The courts were dedicated at the ceremony as the Joni Crenshaw-Taylor Basketball Court.

Then in 1997, she rode off to embark on her college basketball journey at the University of Alabama, where she was one of the major contributors to the Crimson Tide’s run to the post-season play. Simply put, Taylor led the team to the 1998 and 1999 NCAA Championship tournaments.

In her Junior and Senior years of college, she led the team to two WNITs and was a two-year starter who scored 716 points, 555 rebounds, and 103 blocks in her college basketball career. These stats have placed her at #4 in the program’s career leaders.

Off the court too, she didn’t budge to stand out in contributions. She was named to the SEC’s Community Service Team for women’s basketball in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Hence, she was recognized as one of the program’s most influential African Americans in her senior year. Also, she was awarded a post-graduate scholarship from the SEC for her exemplary community service record.

When starting College, she had the intention to walk in her parents and brother’s footsteps. So to speak, her plan was simply to graduate with a counseling degree and be a high school counselor during the week and a church counselor on weekends, as a simple way to help people per se. But life had other plans for her.

The turning point that changed Taylor’s life forever

In her senior season at Alabama, she served as a student assistant when she was bitten by the coaching bug. She joined her former assistant head coach, Mike Murphy at Troy University after he called her and said, “I just got the job at Troy University and want you to be my recruiting coordinator.” She was only 22.

“I am not perfect by any means, now or then. I try to do the right thing and you never know when somebody is going to be in a position to help you in your career. This was a man who had been an assistant coach for 16 years on the men’s and women’s side combined, and his first opportunity he asked a young buck like me who has no idea what the heck I was doing,” Taylor responded to the faith Murphy had shown in her because of her.

From then on, her career plans were led by her realized passion for becoming a coach. For three years (2002-05), Taylor worked as an assistant coach at Troy. Then she moved to Louisiana Tech in 2005, working under the same role before becoming an associate head coach at her alma mater, Alabama in 2008. However, life had much more to offer to her at Louisiana Tech than usual.

Joni Taylor’s personal life

Turns out, she had crossed passed with the person she was going to spend the rest of her life with, i.e. the former Atlanta Dream’s assistant coach, Darius Taylor. Their first meeting turned out to be a funny encounter as both of them were recruiting the same player, who later ended up committing to Clemson.

Prior to this interesting encounter, she joined LSU as an assistant coach in 2010 which led her to Georgia in 2011, where she was promoted to associate head coach after a year.

Perhaps that was fate as the two again crossed paths. “Occasionally I would just ask her how’s everything going. I remembered her birthday, I would ask prying questions like, ‘What’s your significant other going to do for you?’ And one of the times she was like ‘I don’t have a significant other,’ and I was like, ‘Oh really?,” said Darius Taylor. The next year, i.e. 2015, Joni and Darius walked down the aisle and started a new life together.

It was also a new beginning in Joni Taylor’s career as well as she became the program’s second full-time head coach after Hall of Famer Coach Andy Landers declared his retirement.

As for Darius, he stepped down from his assistant coach position at South Carolina as he understood what it would take for his wife as a head coach. “Once she became the head coach, I just knew how important it was for me to be around and help and having to understand what it takes to do the job. You need people. Your family is important to support you and take care of the other stuff. Because the basketball is the smallest part of being a head coach,” he said.

His decision was significant because, before their wedding, the two were considering buying a house in Augusta Georgia which was a halfway point between the University of Georgia and the University of South Carolina. So after stepping down, Darius worked in real estate before he landed his dream job in 2017.

In 2022, Joni Taylor accepted to become the head women’s basketball coach at Texas A&M in 2022. But her mindset and approach always stayed the same, as she put it, “It’s always special to see people who helped shape you as a young adult and have some form of impact on who you became. In terms of getting the feels, I’ve gotten so used to it that once we get on the bus, it’s a road trip. It’s a business trip.”

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting pilot episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and SEC All-Freshman Team Selection, Silas Demary Jr