About 1 — Hunter Taylor

My Journey

**City Champions**
The 2008 season was my first experience coaching a team as a new teacher in Jackson, MS. We ended up winning the school’s first city title in 10 years, and I had the most fun I’d ever had being in a gym with middle schoolers for 10 hours a week coaching a game.

**Winning Back Home**
In 2011, I came back to the East Texas area to be the head basketball coach for Spring Hill High School. We won the most games in school history, captured the District and Area championships, and spent countless hours together becoming a family.

**Learning from the Best**
From 2013 to 2016, I was part of the Baylor Men’s Basketball Staff that served under Coach Scott Drew. We went to the NCAA tournament three consecutive years for the first time in school history, and my understanding of team dynamics and culture was greatly influenced by the best college basketball program in the country. Five years later, Baylor would win the national championship.

**The Nation’s Biggest Turnaround**
In 2017, while serving on the Arkansas State basketball staff under Coach Grant McCasland, we helped the team win the most games in program history, have the biggest win turnaround in all of Division I, and have the largest home attendance increase in all of Division I. We even upset Georgetown in McDonough Arena, which was one of the coolest basketball moments of my coaching career.

**A Different Kind of Scoreboard**
After joining the faculty at the University of Mississippi (UM) in 2017, I spent the next five years teaching students enrolled in one of the most prestigious graduate teaching programs in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the Mississippi Teacher Corps. My work was exclusively devoted to helping them teach and serve students in our state’s critical needs school districts. I am convinced that they are doing society’s most challenging, and most important, work.

**Writing the Perfect Coaching Story**
After spending almost five years researching and writing about a coaching staff that spanned three decades and three different rural East Texas communities, my book “Draw the Line” officially came out on June 28, 2022. The book was my attempt at writing the perfect story that truly showed how a high school coaching staff can lift up an entire community. It is told through the lens of current UTSA head football coach Jeff Traylor and his longtime colleagues.

**Building A Thick Institution**
In the fall of 2017, I began working with Oxford High School’s head football coach, Chris Cutcliffe, on ways to make Cutcliffe’s football program better. After two years of collaborating, his 2019 football team captured the 6A state championship and was named the #1 team in the state by Max Preps. To make it even sweeter, I also got to do this with my father. Our work is documented in our book and TED talk, “How to Build a Thick Institution.”

**Creating More Teams**
During the summer of 2022, I founded a coaching fellowship that partners UM with the Mississippi Association of Coaches and the Mississippi High School Activities Association. Each year we’ll select a new group of 25 exceptional coaches from across the state and invest in them and their work, which directly impacts high school and middle school student-athletes. I am so excited about how this work is going to change lives for years to come.

My Bio

Dr. Hunter Taylor

Dr. Hunter A. Taylor is the founding director of the Mississippi Excellence in Coaching Fellowship, also known as Tomorrow’s 25. This innovative initiative, which partners the University of Mississippi (UM) with the Mississippi Association of Coaches (MAC) and the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA), is a year-long fellowship for a select group of 25 coaches from across the state who have demonstrated a positive, long-term commitment to the student-athletes in their communities.

Before joining the UM faculty, he spent 10 years as a men’s basketball coach on the college, high school, middle school, and international levels. Taylor has coached in three NCAA tournaments, advancing to one Sweet 16; been a part of the biggest single-season turnaround in Division I; and captured City, District, and State championships on the secondary level.

Prior to founding the Mississippi Excellence in Coaching Fellowship, Taylor spent his first five years at UM helping lead one of the most prestigious graduate teaching programs in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the Mississippi Teacher Corps.

Hunter believes his life’s mission is to help leaders experience success, meaning, and a desire to create this for their teammates.

He is the author of Draw the Line: Jeff Traylor, the Gilmer Buckeyes, and a Season Deep in the Heart of East Texas, and he is the co-author of How to Build a Thick Institution: Organizational Lessons from a Championship High School Football Team. Taylor also serves as co-host of the sports leadership podcast, “Coach & Doc.”

He has an undergraduate degree from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Mississippi, and a Doctor of Education from Baylor University. After completing his master’s, Taylor spent two years serving on U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s staff in Washington, DC.

In 2018, Taylor was one of 59 leaders from across the U.S. to be named a Presidential Leadership Scholar by the Bush Institute and the Clinton Foundation for his work in education. In 2022, nominated by his students at UM, he was one of three finalists for Professor of the Year. And in 2023, Taylor was identified as one of the state’s Top 40 Leaders Under the Age of 40 by the Mississippi Business Journal.

He is an Affiliated Faculty Member in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at UM, the Scholar-in-Residence for the Oxford School District, and an advisor for Smallwoods - a national retail brand based out of Texas.

He serves on the board of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, the UM Chancellor’s Lecture Series, the Oxford Lodge, and the Presidential Leadership Scholars Alumni.

Originally from East Texas, Taylor and his wife, Brittany, along with their three sons, Yates, Simms, & Knox, now call Oxford home.

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