Admire Taylor for living his dream

Will McCahill Whatcha talkin' 'bout Willis?

We all come to college chasing a dream. Some of us don't know exactly what that dream is when we get here, yet it's something powerful enough, enticing enough, to get us to leave home, forsake the cozy confines of high school and hometown for the sprawling, intimidating world-unto-itself of Ann Arbor.

Then there are those who know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the dream they are pursuing. They have a confidence of purpose that the rest don't possess, for they can see that light at the end of the tunnel, that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Maurice Taylor was one of those lucky souls. He arrived here in 1994, knowing exactly what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to play professional basketball, to run the court with the best in the world.

And now, three years later, he's in a position to realize that dream, to make a reality out of the visions that have danced in his head for as long as he can remember.

There are, of course, those who will criticize Taylor's decision to forego his senior year at Michigan and declare himself eligible for the NBA draft in June. Some will say that he's not ready, that he needs to stay in school, finish his education, give himself something to fall back on after he leaves the court for the final time.

Those are the people who have forgotten how to dream, who don't remember what it's like to have that shining ideal beckoning you.

For those of us who still do hold such things close to our hearts, there is nothing we can do but cheer for Taylor, to wish him nothing but the best.

It no longer matters if we think he made the right decision. The time has passed for that debate. Taylor has decided to leave, and now he deserves our best wishes. We should give him the same fond farewells that we would give any friend, any classmate going off to chase a dream.

Taylor has talked a lot about his dream in the last week, at the Basketball Bust last Wednesday night and at his press conference Friday. He talked about playing basketball on the playground, pretending he was Michael Jordan.

"Achieving a dream is something that you can't put words to," he said Friday.

And he's right, so I'm not really going to try.

Taylor's given us some great memories in his time here. Maybe not everything we hoped for, but as I've already said, that's water under the bridge.

It's been my pleasure to cover the Michigan basketball team this season, and Taylor has been a big part of that. Nobody on the team is required to like the press, but never once did I get the impression from Taylor that I was bugging him, was pissing him off by being in the lockerroom after games, pestering him with silly questions.

Sure, maybe it's common courtesy to be polite, but if you're competitive, the last thing you want to be doing after a loss is explaining what you did wrong, particularly to some reporter.

It's a shame most people around here haven't had a chance to see as much of Taylor as I have this year. He's a great guy, smart and with a sharp sense of humor. One of the things he said Friday was that once NBA teams get to know him personally, they'll like him even better.

Certainly true.

We all have our hopes and dreams. At one time, many of us wanted to be professional athletes, to be adults getting paid to play children's games. A dream that died fairly early on, when we realized we weren't getting any taller, that we weren't quick enough.

I envy Taylor, because his dream is still alive. I envy him because, at age 20, he's much closer to fulfilling his dream than I am to fulfilling mine at age 23.

Just as in the past we looked to Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose to make their dreams reality, we now should have those same hopes for Taylor.

Just as he's gone out and represented all of us on the court for three years, he now goes out into the NBA. And still he will, in some part, be representing us. When we see him in a professional uniform, we will be able to say that we were at Michigan at the same time as Maurice Taylor, to relate to our friends and families our favorite Taylor jam and to tell them how good a player he could be.

He's going to the pros to try to achieve a dream. But it's not just his dream, not just his fantasy. It's a little bit our dream, too. Taylor said he's still a Wolverine, and he's right. He's just moving along to richer hunting grounds in the NBA.

Good luck, Maurice. Get out there and kick some ass. You're getting to do something that many of us may never get to do.

Go out and make that dream a reality.

- Will McCahill can be reached over e-mail at wmcc@umich.edu.

04-14-97