New Coach for Badminton

Sarah Dinell
September 11, 2009
Filed under Sports

The Corona badminton team is coming off a great year but have few returning players and a new head coach.

Although this is David Taylor’s first year coaching badminton, he is enthusiastic about the coming year and getting the chance to develop each player’s skills.

“I enjoy working with the players on an individual basis. Whether it is discovering their strengths and weaknesses, talking about tactics or technique; it is all fun to me,” Taylor said.

A longtime fan of the game, Taylor has played badminton for 15 years.

He became a badminton coach because he wants to pass on his love of the game to students.

“I wanted to coach because I love playing (badminton) and I wanted to share my insights with a new group of players,” Taylor said. “Playing a sport enabled me to achieve a lot of good things when I was younger, so I want to offer the same chances to present-day school students.”

While Taylor has never instructed badminton before at Corona, this is not his first year on campus.

Last year, he was a student teacher under Mike Lohmann in the business department.

Currently, he is enjoying his position as a teacher at McClintock High School, but he is also very excited to coach badminton as well. 

“I’m looking forward to learning the role of being a coach and sharing good times with my team. I’m excited to play some competitive games against other schools and I also look forward to the invitational tournaments we will be attending on Sept. 12 and Sept. 26,” Taylor said. 

The badminton team is busily preparing for their first game, which is on Sept. 1.

As to Taylor’s expectations for this season, he remains neutral on the possibility of a second state championship.

 “It is difficult to predict what will happen in our matches because I have not seen any other teams play,” Taylor said. “What I can say is that I am very impressed with my players’ skill level, hard work in training and team spirit. The most important aspects of any competitive sport are to enjoy it and learn valuable life lessons such as teamwork, communication and sportsmanship. Usually you find that success follows once these elements are in place.”

Senior Brittany Messer, the only remaining varsity badminton player from last year, has positive things to say about Taylor. 

“He’s really nice,” Messer said. “He’s been around the game awhile, and he will help us win.”