Lawrence Taylor Biography - Growing Up, Limited College Opportunities, Chronology, The Next Level, Searching For Greener Pastures - SELECTED WRITINGS BY TAYLOR:
linebackers player game edge
1959-
American football player
Lawrence Taylor lived on the edge. Quite possibly one of the best linebackers to play the game, Taylor starred for the New York Giants and set a new standard for how linebackers played the game. He brought about a new statistic (the sack), and was a dominant player whose personal life was plagued with substance abuse problems. His induction into the Hall of Fame, in 1999, was marked by controversy due to his problems with drugs.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY TAYLOR:
(With David Falkner) LT: Living on the Edge, Times Books, 1987.
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Lawrence Taylor was born on February 4, 1959, in Williamsburg, Virginia. He grew up in a four-room
Lawrence Taylor
frame house on the outskirts of the restored colonial village. Hailing from a middle-class environment, Taylor was the middle brother of three, and his parents have remembered his early years as active ones. Taylor was physical even as a small child. "He liked to hit,&#x…
His late entry into football was one of the reasons he was largely skipped over by college recruiters. Only two recruiters spoke to him about college ball. The University of North Carolina offered him a scholarship, in spite of his poor grades, and Taylor wouldn't turn it down.
He entered college with the belief that he needed to raise hell, skip classes and get into trouble in order t…
Upset with the overall performance of the Giants in the 1982 and 1983 seasons, Taylor shopped around for better deals with other teams. Though his contract with the Giants ran through 1987, and the team wouldn't trade him, he signed a deal with the New Jersey Generals, a USFL team, that would begin in 1988. But the Giants counter-offered, and Taylor stayed with the team. In 1986, they would…
Though he was a phenomenal success on the field, off the field Taylor's troubles would escalate. LT became well known in the New York media for complaining about the city and its pressures. This was not the relationship he wanted with the press when, with the success, money, and pressures of life in the NFL taking its toll, Taylor would sink into substance abuse. He handled the pressures of…
In the spring of 1986, Taylor checked himself into a rehabilitation program for substance abuse. The statement he issued at the time said: "In the past year, due to substance abuse, I have left the road I had hoped to follow both as a player and a public figure." When he emerged from treatment, he went on to have the best season of his career with the Giants, leading them to a Super …
Goodman, Michael E. Lawrence Taylor (Sports Close Ups 2). New York: Crestwood House, 1988. "Lawrence Taylor." Great Athletes, vol. 7. Hackensack, N.J.: Salem Press, Inc., 2718-2720. Liss, Howard. The Lawrence Taylor Story. Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1987. Taylor, Lawrence, with David Falkner. LT: Living on the Edge. New York: Times Books, 1987. Adande, J.A. "NFL Should Honor Tay…
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