No one should feel obligated to give new Head Coach Willie Taggart a tour of Western’s campus.
He’s already very familiar with the school.
“Western is in my DNA,” Taggart said at his introductory press conference on Monday. “One thing about me, you don’t have to retrain me in the community. I know where to go, and I’ve bled red since day one.”
Taggart graduated from Western in 1998 and set 11 school records as the Toppers’ quarterback from 1995-98.
The former Western quarterback totaled 3,957 rushing yards in his career — an NCAA record at the time, according to the NCAA’s Web site.
Taggart is also one of only three Western players in the last 50 years to start at quarterback for four seasons and one of four players in program history to have their number retired, according to a Western press release.
“I loved playing here, and I’m proud of the success we achieved here,” Taggart said at the press conference. “I’m also proud to represent all of the WKU players that have contributed to such success in our 91-year history of the program.”
Taggart is one of only five players in Division I-AA (now Football Championship Series) history to both pass and rush for 3,000 yards in a career, and he was the I-AA Independent Offensive Player of the Year in 1998.
But Taggart also left an impression on Western as a member of the coaching staff.
He was hired by then-coach Jack Harbaugh in 1999 as a wide receivers coach, just a semester after graduating from Western.
Harbaugh said at the time that Taggart still had aspirations of playing professional football, but he contained all of the tools to be a good coach.
“I know he’d like to look at the Canadian league and maybe Arena Football, and I want him to do that,” Harbaugh told the Herald in 1999. “But at some point in time, football will come to an end, and I want him to know that teaching and coaching would be a tremendous opportunity for him.”
Taggart stayed at Western after ending his playing career, becoming quarterbacks coach in 2000 and eventually assistant head coach in 2003.
He left Western in 2006 to become the running backs coach at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh, a position he said he will continue to serve until the end of this season.
But Taggart told the Herald in 2007 that Western would always be a special place to him.
“Western is my home, it’s where I played ball and grew into a young man, and it pretty much made me who I am,” Taggart said in 2007. “And I am going to represent Western Kentucky to the fullest, ‘cause I’m like a kid leaving home representing his family.”
Reporter Jeremy Brown contributed to this story.
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