A white Georgia athletics coach has become embroiled in controversy after footage of him making racially insensitive comments, including ones about lynching, went viral on social media.
According to The Daily Beast, Mark Taylor, owner of Speed Edge Sports in Macon, reportedly advertises on social media that he was Georgia High School Association’s track coach of the year for six years consecutively and a former defensive end for the University of Georgia who’s helped place over “60 athletes at D1 schools and 16 in the NFL.”
While many of Taylor’s social media posts show him working with Black student-athletes — some of whom have moved up to play sports professionally — his training skills are currently being overshadowed by hateful remarks he made about people who resemble the very clients who helped him become popular.
Lauren Angelica Law, a self-described civil rights activist, posted three videos of the coach on Facebook on Monday and urged users to share them.
“RACIST Mark Taylor, Warner Robins Ga, speed training trainer/coach for High school athletes, leaked video showing gross racial behavior in Atlanta Ga,” Law’s post read, according to The Daily Beast. “Murderous threats towards the same race of people he coaches. Most of his clients are the same color he despises.”
The first clip features a man who appears to be Taylor driving at night through downtown Atlanta — which he repeatedly referred to as a “n—– town” — pointing out he hadn’t seen a white person.
“Homeless ones on the street. Every restaurant, looking here, is Black. Every car beside me is Black. They can have Atlanta,” he said, according to The Daily Beast. “It used to be a fun place to come to.”
Before turning the camera to his face, he comments on people traveling to Atlanta “to go hunting. “Ain’t nothing but Blacks up here,” he said. “It’s all it is. Atlanta’s just gone down, man. Just gone.”
The NFL is racist, part 400
Another video purports to show Taylor filming a Black woman driving. “Look at that n—– trying to pull out in front of me, right here,” he said. Taylor turned the camera toward a tree by the street, adding, “Ro will hang you from that tree. Yeah!”
In the third video, a clock, gun and phone are on a bedside table, which Taylor records before turning the camera on himself and jokingly calling for room service.
“I need y’all n—— to bring me some chicken wings, two hoes. A redbone and a white girl,” he said, The Daily Beast reported. “Yeah, I want the white girl. Ro want to try the redbone. He probably throw her out the window when he done with her.”
Although it’s unclear who Taylor is alluding to with “Ro,” a redbone is a fair-skinned Black woman with red undertones.
Social media activist Shaun King shared two videos to his accounts. He contended Taylor had collaborated with major football and athletics programs at Clemson and the universities of Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
However, Ross Taylor, assistant athletic director for football communications at Clemson, asserted his campus had frequently invited Mark Taylor there as a guest with high school students seeking to possibly attend Clemson, yet he was never officially under their employment. “So,” Ross Taylor contended, “we really have no association with him.”
The Georgia High School Association’s executive director, Robert Hines, said Mark Taylor was “not nor has he ever been employed” by the organization.
The coach also rented space at a private school, Central Fellowship Christian Academy, for training purposes. The school said Monday its officials were “shocked” by the footage of Mark Taylor and called it an “error” to associate him with the school or the associated church, Central Fellowship Baptist, adding that they have immediately severed that relationship.
He has also made controversial comments on social media in the past. He allegedly made a homophobic remark when he commended former NFL coach Jon Gruden for his “morals and values” in response to a Twitter post from October 2021.
“If the NFL gonna embrace and promote the gays,” he reportedly tweeted, according to The Daily Beast. “Time to leave for me n him.”
The embattled trainer allegedly has harassed his former fiancée in the past. He was terminated from coaching and teaching at Houston County Schools and pled guilty to a felony witness tampering charge. In 2007, Houston County banned him.
Karen Buckman, a white woman whose son trained with Mark Taylor, said the coach “shouldn’t be around kids,” of any race.
“Our parents need to know what they’re walking into,” Buckman said, The Daily Beast reported. “You don’t have to be a parent of a Black child or any person of color to be horrified or think this is horrendous.”
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