False Start : UCLA’s Taylor Battles Injuries, Vies for Starting Role

Matt Taylor left Huntington Beach for UCLA in the fall of 1991 with just about every accolade a high school volleyball player could receive.

His resume included honors such as Volleyball Monthly All-American, Orange County player of the year and All-Southern Section.

He was the Sunset League’s MVP for a year in which the league produced nearly a half-dozen Division I college players.

He landed a scholarship to UCLA on the night he was named MVP of the Orange County high school all-star game.

So with the way things had been going, Taylor figured success with the Bruins would be only an arm swing away.

Then came the knee injury.

Then came the back problems.

Then came the redshirt year, the long practices and little playing time.

“It’s just a shock to go from the limelight to being such a scrub,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how good you were before in high school. Nobody cares about that here. All they want to know is what you can do for the team here.”

A wake-up call, perhaps?

“Yeah,” he said. “It definitely was.”

It would be easy to end the story there, but Taylor hasn’t written off his college career. He’s healthy again and has three seasons of eligibility left after earning an NCAA championship ring last season.

And he’s challenging for a starting role with the top-ranked Bruins (5-1), who play host to 10th-ranked UC Santa Barbara tonight.

Taylor, a sophomore, opened the season in the starting lineup in place of an injured Kevin Wong. But after Wong recovered from an ankle injury, he replaced Taylor as the starting left-side hitter.

Battling for playing time is something new to Taylor, a three-year starter at Huntington Beach High. But at UCLA, competition to reach the main court in practice can send even the best high school players packing.

Despite the injuries and setbacks, Taylor stuck around Westwood.

As a redshirt freshman last season, he earned a varsity letter by hitting .375 while coming off the bench in nine matches.

“Last year was nerve-racking because there was so much pressure,” said Taylor, a 6-foot-4 outside hitter. “This year, I feel like I’m going out to play, rather than to not screw up. I’m a lot more confident.”

Injuries took away any hopes Taylor had for an easy transition into college.

Bruin Coach Al Scates had Taylor sit out his freshman season to lift weights and practice. But Taylor could do little of either because of the injuries.

He was a regular in the trainer’s room with inflammation in his knee. He missed the first two months of the season, including some valuable conditioning time.

“It was such an intense pain every time I bent my knee,” he said. “I could walk on it, but I could never jog or lift weights with my legs.”

After the swelling subsided, Taylor returned to practice, but two or three weeks into workouts, his back started hurting.

“My back muscles were weak and not comparable to the rest of my body,” he said. “The trainers put me on a new weight program to strengthen my back. They made me get away from the bench press and other upper-body lifts.”

The back problems kept Taylor from working out the rest of the spring or summer. It was the first time in several years he spent a substantial amount of time away from the volleyball court.

“It was so weird,” he said, “that after a hard-core year of high school volleyball, I wound up having to take so much time off. The redshirt year is so vital for lifting and getting stronger, and I wasn’t getting that done, either.”

Taylor returned for the 1993 season out of shape but determined to make it on a talent-rich team that had an excellent shot at winning the national title.

“I just made up my mind that I wasn’t going to hold back anything,” he said. “I really worked hard. Eventually, I got to play on the first court. That was the best thing that could happen to me. I was hitting against the six-best guys in the nation, the best block.”

It was there that Taylor really learned the college game. In high school, he could overpower blockers. Not so in college, where players are bigger and stronger, and blocks are as sturdy as concrete.

“College teams will take that away from you,” he said. “Rarely is it there. You have to learn how to read a block, to respect it. You have to know who you’re hitting against, know their tendencies. There’s a lot more scouting in college.”

Little by little, Taylor is beginning to piece together a college career. He isn’t as dominant as he was in high school, but Scates thinks Taylor could develop into a fine college player with a little more work.

“Matt is a great all-around player,” Scates said. “I know he can block more consistently. His ball-handling is very good, and he does everything else well. That’s the kind of player who will do well out on the beach some day.

“I like his scoring ability, and he has an attacking attitude when he swings at the ball. If he could just jump a little higher on his block, he would push Kevin for the starting position. But the way he’s going, I really think he has a chance to start for us on a regular basis.”

And that couldn’t come any soon enough for Taylor.

“It’s hard to go from playing four years in a row in high school and playing every match,” he said, “to coming here and accepting your role as a backup player.

“Just to be out on the court now is a crazy feeling.”