Brewster's Michael Taylor, left, and his father, coach Tim Taylor, watch their team's game against Ilwaco on Wednesday in the SunDome.   GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic

IT'S ALL RELATIVE 

Brewster earns its Taylor-made success
 

At the top of Michael Taylor’s to-do list Friday was win.

Meaning help/lead/carry — whatever the occasion called for — in Brewster’s Class 1A state tournament semifinal against Zillah.

Later, having sweated several bullets while dodging numerous others, he quickly moved on to the next-highest priority. Meaning give credit to the Leopards in general and Chris Gasseling in particular.

“Great game by their team,” Taylor said while packing his equipment bag in a SunDome locker room, “and their No. 20 (Gasseling) was especially tough on defense. Could you put something in your story about him?”

Done.

That someone should be credited with playing good defense on an opponent who’d just scored 29 points, as Taylor had in the Bears’ hard-fought 57-50 victory, might sound like a backhanded compliment.

But not in this instance, because Gasseling had played that hard. And Taylor still scored 29, because Taylor is that good.

One of the best ever to play in the 1A tournament, in fact, which dates back to 1958.

Taylor’s talent was clearly not lost on Zillah coach Doug Burge, his players and his staff as they filed slowly past the Brewster’s headquarters.

“Your son’s awesome,” Burge said, extending a hand to Taylor’s father and coach, Tim Taylor.

Added assistant Dick Waldman, “I’ve been around basketball a long time, and he’s one of the best I’ve seen. Really.”

To which the Brewster coach smiled and said, “Thank you.”

Burge and Waldman clearly know basketball, having themselves been standout players at Highland and Zillah, respectively. But Tim Taylor has an impressive hoops resume of his own from his days at South Bend High School, located on the south side of Willapa Harbor.

Tim Taylor played in four 1A tournaments, from 1974-77 when it was held in the University of Puget Sound Fieldhouse, and by most accounts was among the best to grace the event, too.

Like father, like son? Pretty much.

Different era and different game, maybe, but the similarities are striking. And for someone fortunate enough to have seen both play, a joy to watch.

As Michael is on this season’s Brewster team, Tim was the main man on his South Bend squads. He always drew the opponent’s best defender, always got the opposing coach’s most creative defensive scheme.

Sometimes things got rough, physically and otherwise, but as Tim Taylor played through whatever confronted him with stoic determination, so does Michael.

Outwardly, at least.

“There are times I get a little worked up,” Michael said Thursday, “but a lot of times when that happens I’ll just take a second to pray and ask God to help me calm down. That always helps.

“Plus, I have cousins (Wade and Clay Gebbers) on the team, and my dad’s my coach. They help, too.”

As there was no 3-point shot when Tim played, easy-use technology to preserve games for posterity hadn’t arrived, either.

“We didn’t film at South Bend,” Tim said, “and we didn’t even film at UPS (University of Puget Sound, where Taylor played later). It just wasn’t done.”

So there is little visual evidence with which to compare the two. Still, Michael has found footage of Tim playing in a men’s league, and he’s taken mental notes.

“When Dad really got his shot going,” he said, “he’d release the ball and then pull his hand back really quick, without following through. He’s always told me to not do that, but it worked for him.”

As Michael is now, Tim was a smooth, fluid player who seemed to glide to the basket. As Tim was then, Michael is as smart as he is talented, and was a multi-skilled player who made his teammates better.

Both, for the most part, are unflappable.

There was an instance Thursday when Tim offered some animated advice to Michael after the latter had been whistled for an offensive foul.

“He was getting too deep when he’d drive to the basket,” Tim said later. “That can get you in trouble.”

Lest someone reach the mistaken idea that Tim is an overbearing father who happens to also be his son’s coach, or that he is continuing his competitive life through Michael’s exploits (the younger Taylor has signed with Eastern Washington), they simply don’t know either person.

While each is fiercely competitive, he is also typically composed and uncommonly classy.

Witness last season, when a bitterly disappointed Tim Taylor stood at midcourt and heartily applauded while Bellevue Christian received its state championship trophy after beating Brewster in an overtime classic.

For the record, South Bend won none of the four state tournaments in which Tim Taylor played. The Indians’ best finish came in 1976, his junior season, when South Bend went 27-1 and finished third.

Michael, of course, will seek his third title Saturday. And the value of either winning or playing for a championship is nothing he’s taking for granted.

“After my freshman year,” he said, “some of us went down to Oregon to watch Luke Ridnour. We told him we’d won that year, and he said, ‘Never be satisfied.’ We talked to him last year, after we lost, and he said, ‘Forget it. Let it go and go get the next one.’ ”

With that, Michael Taylor removed a videocam from his bag and clicked it on just as he approached a large group of cheering Brewster fans who were awaiting him with open arms.

Like father, like son?

Tim Taylor, in the old days at the UPS Fieldhouse, would have done that, too. He just didn’t have the technology.