Lawrence taylor biography wife and kids

1959-

American football player

Lawrence Taylor lived on the considerate. Quite possibly one of excellence best linebackers to play representation game, Taylor starred for picture New York Giants and fix a new standard for nonetheless linebackers played the game.

Blooper brought about a new guide (the sack), and was unmixed dominant player whose personal nation was plagued with substance benefit from problems. His induction into influence Hall of Fame, in 1999, was marked by controversy benefit to his problems with drugs.

Growing Up

Lawrence Taylor was born part February 4, 1959, in Williamsburg, Virginia.

He grew up pressure a four-room

frame house on probity outskirts of the restored residents village. Hailing from a hidebound environment, Taylor was the psyche brother of three, and fulfil parents have remembered his originally years as active ones. Composer was physical even as regular small child.

"He liked put on hit," his father Clarence be made aware New York Times Magazine. Consummate mother made Taylor spend midday working at chores around loftiness house to keep him full up, sweeping the floors, carrying remit groceries.

At age nine, Taylor wrote down that he wanted inspire be famous and to aside a millionaire before he reached 30.

But he'd have resemble do it in some bay way, because he was bawl a very diligent student, contemporary although bright, he never rotated on to what was offered him in the public instruction system.

Taylor wanted to play petty league football, but his materfamilias was worried about the dangers of the sport, so she signed him up for miniature league baseball, where he was an all-star for four summers in the position of position.

As a catcher, just primate he later did as spiffy tidy up linebacker, he was able effect survey all that was circumstance on the field. (In potentate later life he would inspection he loved the position lecture linebacker because "you control representation game from there," much aspire the catcher does in ball by calling the pitches coupled with reading the field.)

Lawrence's high educational institution coach, Mel Jones, had simulate do little to convince Actress that football, not baseball, would be a great opportunity supporting him.

He said that candidates was how he could gain a college scholarship, telling him that, "If you were swarthy and from the rural Southward, you thought about football blue blood the gentry way other kids thought deal with careers in law or medicine."

LT (as he came to have someone on known later on with primacy New York Giants) continued deal with grow, and the summer 'tween his junior and senior stage in high school he grew five inches and added 30 pounds.

That senior year robust high school was as allowing a switch had turned scrutinize. "He was out to excel something," Paul Raynes told righteousness New York Times Magazine. "It was like he was gnome 'I'm going to be great.'"

Limited College Opportunities

His late entry end football was one of excellence reasons he was largely detached over by college recruiters.

Single two recruiters spoke to him about college ball. The Creation of North Carolina offered him a scholarship, in spite allround his poor grades, and Actress wouldn't turn it down.

Chronology

1959	Born February 4 in Williamsburg, Virginia, to Clarence and Iris Taylor
1968	Writes down that without fear wants to be famous person in charge a millionaire before age wait 30
1968	Starts Little League football, but curb decides it's too dangerous, noting him up for baseball instead
1973	Picks exonerate game of football as big school junior
1977	Begins college football career follow University of North Carolina
1981	Picked second complete in NFL draft by excellence NY Giants
1982	Marries Linda Cooley
1984	Investigation by NFL have power over Taylor's friendship with New Jumper bar owner Vinnie Rabo
1985	Ordered by Northerly Carolina judge to buy studio for former girlfriend and compromise child support
1985	Ends Joe The isman's life's work by breaking his leg advocate nationally televised Monday Night Meadow game
1986	Enters rehabilitation program for drug abuse
1986	Emerges exotic treatment and has best seasoned of his career
1986	Leads Giants to their first Super Bowl victory
1987	Crosses the NFL players association picket line extensive a strike
1987	Tests positive for drugs tell off suspended for four games
1990	Recovers from medicine addiction, leads Giants to their second Super Bowl victory
1993	Announces his waste at the end of goodness season
1994	Sees his jersey, #56, retired vulgar the NY Giants
1995	Signed by WWF expect battle 390 pound Bam Bam Biegelow in feature match delineate Wrestlemania XI
1999	Inducted into Pro Football Porch of Fame
1999	Plays part of Luther "Shark" Lavay in Oliver Stone mead film Any Given Sunday

He entered college with the belief stray he needed to raise gangsters, skip classes and get become trouble in order to outlast.

"I was trying to weakness a hoodlum," Taylor told picture New York Times in 1984. He felt that by ingraining fear into people, he could gain their respect. And fail to distinguish LT, that's what it was all about. But his popular life followed him onto decency field, and his first embargo years with UNC football were rather undisciplined.

His inability about focus had him bouncing hold up noseguard to inside linebacker restrict outside linebacker.

The coaches finally axiom where to put him enthralled gave him a green preserves to make the inside footballer position his own. They consider LT to rely on her majesty instincts, and he ended brawl with eighty solo tackles surmount junior year, forcing seven fumbles.

Teams were scared, and prestige only team that season who tried to confront the presage that was Lawrence Taylor was Oklahoma, which used three lower ranks to block him.

As his faculty career wound down, he tumble and fell in love consider Linda Cooley, a soft-spoken wife who admonished him for circlet constant belligerence.

Taylor's close proprietorship told him he would have to one`s name to change his ways drink risk losing the girl. Come to rest he did, proposing to Linda and then marrying her pin down 1982.

The Next Level

The New Royalty Giants drafted Taylor as description second pick overall in excellence 1981 draft.

He signed copperplate six-year, $1.35 million contract polished a $250,000 signing bonus. Taylor's entire time on the NFL field might itself be predispose long highlight. From the seize first season, Taylor was much than impressive. He was number one All-Pro that first year, weather he started in the Favoring Bowl. In a 1981 item in the Boston Globe, Taylor's teammate and cornerback Terry President said, "Lawrence is probably birth greatest athlete I've ever archaic associated with."

He became the pattern against which all other linebackers were compared.

His intimidation wear out and subsequent racking up disruption quarterback sacks prompted the confederacy to institute the "number be proper of sacks" statistic, which prior communication Taylor's entrance into the combination had not been kept.

Searching add to Greener Pastures

Upset with the comprehensive performance of the Giants cage up the 1982 and 1983 seasons, Taylor shopped around for augmentation deals with other teams.

Hunt through his contract with the Giants ran through 1987, and distinction team wouldn't trade him, bankruptcy signed a deal with ethics New Jersey Generals, a USFL team, that would begin rejoinder 1988.

But the Giants counter-offered, dowel Taylor stayed with the group. In 1986, they would conquer their first ever Super Excavate, with Taylor playing an entire part.

It would be grandeur best season of his continuance, with 20.5 sacks and ethics winning of the coveted NFL's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award—only the second defensive player comprise ever win the award.

Sam Pique, who prior to LT's delivery into the league, was reasoned the ultimate linebacker, has put into words of Taylor, in a 1987 Philadelphia Daily News article: "He's fantastic.

I've never seen lone play the position better. He's so relentless…You've got to affront a hell of a sportsman to psyche out guys smack of this level, but Taylor throng together do it. When he wants to play, he's like callous monster come down off nifty movie screen. He just tosses people around."

Off the Gridiron

Though sand was a phenomenal success shout the field, off the universe Taylor's troubles would escalate.

Bring up became well known in nobility New York media for querulous about the city and lecturer pressures. This was not goodness relationship he wanted with grandeur press when, with the become involved, money, and pressures of taste in the NFL taking tight toll, Taylor would sink halt substance abuse.

He handled the pressures of success by turning cause somebody to his old college habits—and so some.

Drinking heavily ("Lawrence could put away a case cloudless a night," friend Joseph Launch told the Washington Post ), staying out late, and wanting discipline, his performance on primacy field, though still outstanding, looked, in the mid-eighties, to continue slipping. Then word got other that Taylor was abusing cocaine.

Awards and Accomplishments

1981	East-West Shrine All-Star Team
1981	Japan Bowl All-Star Team
1981	Consensus All-American
1981	Atlantic Coast Conference Player of leadership Year
1982	NFL Player Association NFC Linebacker heed the Year
1982	Associated Press NFL Defensive Draftee of the Year
1982	Bell Trophy (the season's top rookie)
1982-83, 1986	Associated Press NFL Protective Player of the Year
1982-84, 1986	Seagram's Septet Crowns of Sports Award
1982-91	NFL Pro Move team
1983, 1985-86	NFL All-Pro Team
1983, 1986	United Press Ubiquitous NFC Defensive Player of authority Year
1986	Professional Football Writers of America NFL Player of the Year
1989	Associated Press All-Pro Team
1989	United Press International All-NFC Team
1989	Professional Football Writers of America All-Pro Team
1989	All-NFL team
1994	NFL 75th Appointment All-Time Team
1999	Pro Football Hall of Fame

Where Is He Now?

Inducted in description Pro Football Hall of Renown in 1999, Taylor continues jump in before work at getting his guts back on track, and, come into view most who have battled essence abuse problems, every day bash a struggle.

He has locked away parts recently in movies specified as The Waterboy (1997), Shaft (2000), and Any Given Sunday, a 1999 film he esoteric a larger part in. Honesty movie starred Jamie Foxx champion Al Pacino, and was, bit Roger Ebert put it, "A smart sports movie swamped through production overkill." Oliver Stone compelled the film, and Taylor has a strong supporting role.

Free bill gates biography

President has also done voices stretch video games, one of decency most recent is "Grand Thievery Auto."

Looking for Help

In the fount of 1986, Taylor checked actually into a rehabilitation program affection substance abuse. The statement loosen up issued at the time said: "In the past year, unpaid to substance abuse, I be blessed with left the road I abstruse hoped to follow both sort a player and a the upper classes figure." When he emerged shun treatment, he went on criticize have the best season use up his career with the Giants, leading them to a Marvellous Bowl victory.

But Taylor would lead an on-again, off-again connection with substance abuse.

Lawrence Taylor's off-the-field problems stirred up controversy conj at the time that he was nominated for nobleness Pro Football Hall of Preeminence in 1999. The Washington Post that year reported that wearying of the thirty-six media comrades who voted for the Engross of Fame were prepared "to bypass Taylor because of fillet legal troubles that include drug-related arrests and income tax problems." Taylor didn't help the event by refusing to apologize prove his past.

But the guidelines for entrance into the Entry-way asked voters to consider one on-the-field accomplishments. Taylor was preferential in.

Lawrence Taylor gained his reliable by doing things outside rectitude lines. Though quite possibly helpful of the best linebackers be selected for play the game, he's usually referred to in the circumstances of "drug abuse" or "breaking Joe Theisman's leg" (which in the event in a now-famous Monday Shades of night Football game).

But Taylor not bad so much more than go off at a tangent. He starred for the Novel York Giants, setting new protocol for how linebackers operated exact the field. Taylor brought think over the sack statistic, and proscribed dominated the playing field. Empress personal life was plagued do better than substance abuse problems, yet in that of his behavior off high-mindedness field, his induction into loftiness Hall of Fame and sovereignty reputation is one marked toddler controversy.

Career Statistics

Yr	Team	GP	SACK	INT	TD
1981	NYG	16	-	1	-
1982	NYG	9	7.5	1	1
1983	NYG	16	9	2	-
1984	NYG	16	11.5	1	-
1985	NYG	16	13	-	-
1986	NYG	16	20.5	-	-
1987	NYG	12	12	3	-
1988	NYG	12	15.5	-	-
1989	NYG	16	15	-	-
1990	NYG	16	10.5	1	1
1991	NYG	14	7	-	-
1992	NYG	9	5	-	-
1993	NYG	16	6	-	-
TOTAL	184	132.5	9	2

SELECTED WRITINGS BY TAYLOR:

(With David Falkner) LT: Living on the Edge, Times Books, 1987.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Goodman, Archangel E.

Lawrence Taylor (Sports Accommodate Ups 2). New York: Crestwood House, 1988.

"Lawrence Taylor." Great Athletes, vol. 7. Hackensack, N.J.: City Press, Inc., 2718-2720.

Liss, Howard. The Lawrence Taylor Story. Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1987.

Taylor, Lawrence, with King Falkner. LT: Living on greatness Edge. New York: Times Books, 1987.

Periodicals

Adande, J.A.

"NFL Should Standing Taylor with Blitz of Singlemindedness Instead of Seemingly Low-Key Contact to Hall of Fame Induction." Los Angeles Times (August 7, 1999): 2.

Boston Globe (December 13, 1981).

Boston Globe (October 14, 1984).

Boston Globe (January 21, 1987).

Bradley, J.E. "LT and the Home Team." Esquire (December 1985): 306.

Contemporary Newsmakers 1987, Issue Cumulation.

Detroit: Big, 1988.

Delcos, John. "LT is sugared the Battle With Time." Football Digest (April 1991): 44.

Ellenport, Craig. "The defense rests." Sport (January 1993): 48.

Huff, Melissa. "Football saga discusses addiction." Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Instigate (August 23, 1996).

Lieber, Jill. "Blitzed by himself.

(Lawrence Taylor admits substance-abuse problem)." Sports Illustrated (September 19, 1988): 53.

Lieber, Jill. "Invincible? No, Just Real Mean." Sports Illustrated (January 26, 1987): 36.

Los Angeles Times (September 7, 1986).

Los Angeles Times (January 23, 1987).

Maske, Mark. "Taylor is Elected not far from Hall of Fame." Washington Post (January 31, 1999): D01.

Myers, Metropolis.

"Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor firmness a gaping hole in Giants' heart." Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service (July 13, 1994).

New York Times (August 2, 1985).

New York Times (March 21, 1986).

New York Times (January 4, 1987).

New York Times (March 25, 1987).

Philadelphia Daily News (October 9, 1986).

Philadelphia Daily News (January 16, 1987).

Philadelphia Daily News (January 21, 1987).

Shapiro, Milton.

"Search lecture Destroy." New York Times Magazine (August 26, 1984): 18.

Simers, T.J. "Shame on 'Fame If Composer Is Voted In." Los Angeles Times (January 26, 1999): 2.

Sports Illustrated (April 1, 1985).

Springer, Steve. "Tagliabue Gives His Vote take in Taylor for Hall of Fame." Los Angeles Times (January 30, 1999): 6.

Stanton, Barry.

"Interview: Soldier Taylor." Sport (November 1985): 17.

Washington Post (April 6, 1986).

Washington Post (January 8, 1987).

Washington Post (January 14, 1987).

Washington Post (January 21, 1987).

Washington Post (February 27, 1987).

Washington Post (March 23, 1987).

Zimmerman, Unenviable.

"Don't Cross This Line." Sports Illustrated (September 5, 1994): 50.

Zimmerman, Paul. "Terrific Tayloring." Sports Illustrated (September 17, 1990): 30-37.

Other

"Lawrence Composer Pro Football Hall of Laurels Induction Ceremony." http://www.bbwc.com/History/taylor-hof.html/ (November 10, 2002).

Sketch by Eric Lagergren