University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss Mourns the Passing of Pete Taylor
5/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 16, 2011
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Celestian Joseph "Pete" Taylor will be always remembered as "the Father of Southern Miss baseball" and for the many contributions he made to the University of Southern Mississippi and the school's athletic program, and its thousands of student-athletes that he touched during his sixty years as a part of the Golden Eagle athletic family.
Taylor passed away at the age of 92 Sunday morning at his home in Hattiesburg.
If ever a man wore several different hats at Southern Miss, that man was Pete Taylor, who spent time as an athlete on the school's football team for coach Reed Green, served as a assistant coach on the staff of Coach Thad "Pie" Vann, worked as the school's head track and field coach, helped to develop the school's nationally known baseball program as its long-time head coach and helped to guide the school's overall athletic program through some of its most exciting times as assistant athletic director.
"Our Eagle family mourns the death of a wonderful coach, administrator, mentor and friend; however, we rejoice in a life well lived and a peaceful passing. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Taylor family," said Southern Miss athletic director Richard Giannini.
Taylor began his association with Southern Miss as a talented two-way end on Green's 1941 football team that recorded a 9-0-1 record. That team was one of the most explosive in school history scoring 70 points in the season opener that year against Georgia State. Defensively, that team recorded four shutouts.
He left Southern Miss following the 1941 season to enter the military and fight in World War II. In early 1942, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Force. He was trained as a control tower operator and served in Europe from 1942 to 1946. During the war, he was awarded the Bronze Star and a presidential citation with cluster.
Taylor returned to Southern Miss after the war and played football again for Green in 1946 helping to lead the team to a 7-3 record. Taylor also saw action on the baseball and basketball teams and, in his final year as a student at what was then Mississippi Southern College, he was named Mr. MSC.
Taylor was an end who proved time and time again that he could catch the football, but at the same time he was a talented blocker who was vital in making the team's running attack work. On defense, he was able to use his speed and quickness to cause all kinds of problems to the other team.
During the summer of 1947 he played minor league baseball in the Evangeline League. When his baseball dreams were ended by a broken jaw, he began a career as an assistant football coach at Holy Cross High School in New Orleans. In 1949 he became assistant football coach at St. Louis University High School in St. Louis, Missouri and then served as head coach there from 1950 to 1955 and won four city championship titles.
He then returned to Southern Miss in 1955 as end coach for Vann and remained in that position until 1965. During that time the school had some of its greatest football teams including the 1958 and 1962 teams that won the UPI College Division National Championship.
Taylor also spent a few years coaching the Southern Miss track team until that program was dropped and took over as head baseball coach when Coach Clyde "Heifer" Stuart left following the 1958 football season.
He coached the Southern Miss baseball team from 1959 until 1983 and during that time produced a record 320-349-2. The school's beautiful baseball facility which opened in 1984 is appropriately named Pete Taylor Park.
"Coach Taylor was a good man. I feel fortunate to have played under him and to have coached at the field that bears his name. His greatest enjoyment in Southern Miss baseball was the new facility, and that he was able to coach in it in 1983," remembered former baseball coach Corky Palmer, who played for Taylor from 1974-1977. "He always said to me, `Can you believe we used to play on the football practice field?' The fact that he was able to coach there always made him happy. That field being built and the new addition that was a real joy to him."
He became the school's first ever assistant athletic director in December of 1965 and was involved in many of the projects that helped move the school in among the elite colleges and universities. Taylor was actively involved in the renovation of what is now known as Roberts Stadium and the school's entrance into the Metro Conference in July of 1982. He retired from the athletic department following the 1983 baseball season.
Pete and Gloria's family includes: Jeanne Taylor Rice and her husband, David Fredrick Rice, of Marco Island, Fla.; Daniel Clayton Taylor, his wife, Carolyn Gronewold Taylor, and their children, Daniel Clayton Taylor, Jr. (1986), Joseph Ryan Taylor (1988), Christina Marie Brownell Taylor (1990), and Caroline Ann Ellswoth Taylor (1994), of Houston, Texas; Douglas James Taylor, his wife, Sandra Chaisson Taylor, his daughter, Emilie Rachel (1980), and their children, Tara Danielle (1986), and Tatum Collette (1995), of Lafayette, Louisiana; David Perkins Taylor and Lourdes Sanchez-Lopez, his son, Gregory Earl (1985), their daughters, Paula Celeste (2007), of Birmingham, Alabama, and Barbara Taylor Gandy and her husband, Michael Curtis Gandy, of Lumberton, Miss.
Plans are underway to pay tribute to Coach Taylor prior to Thursday night's Conference USA game between the Golden Eagles and the Rice Owls.
Visitation is scheduled for Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hattiesburg for Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 to 11 a.m. The funeral mass will follow at 11:00 a.m. Burial will be at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations go to the C.J. "Pete" Taylor Memorial Baseball Scholarship Fund Athletic Foundation at The University of Southern Mississippi.
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