Death Hits Redskins Hard

A former Miami school official, on condition of anonymity, portrayed Taylor's relationship with his father, Pedro Taylor, the police chief in nearby Florida City as "strained" during his Hurricanes playing days. Taylor's mother and father divorced prior to Sean Taylor enrolling in Miami and the fallout represented a conundrum for the team. During a team banquet in 2003, the two sides of Taylor's family, which weren't speaking at the time, had to be seated apart. Pedro Taylor showed up to Hurricanes practices often and seemed to want to be involved in his son's life as much as possible, but Sean was leery of the new-found attention his father heaped on him, the official said.

His distrust of the media and anyone unaffiliated with his team grew in Washington after several brushes with the law, including facing a felony assault charge in 2005.

Taylor could be sullen and acerbic with outsiders, especially after the 2005 incident in which Taylor was charged with waving a gun at people whom he believed had stolen his all-terrain vehicles. He later pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault and battery, accepting probation and a fine.

He would wall up when asked to be interviewed and seldom allowed anyone outside the team into his world. Though he eventually dropped the stone-cold demeanor and could be congenial and polite at times, he still was clear that he didn't want any of his personal boundaries crossed.

When a Post reporter told Taylor last month he was writing a story about him, Taylor refused to be interviewed but was curious about what teammates and coaches had said about him.

"What'd they say?" he said.

When told they spoke highly of Taylor and that they believed his daughter had changed him for the better, he snickered and smiled. "All right, all right. But don't write I said that. Don't write anything on your pad."

In a 2005 interview with Comcast SportsNet's Kelli Johnson, while facing the felony charge and having chosen to not participate in offseason workouts with the team, Taylor was asked if regretted his behavior and what he had learned from his mistakes.

"Nothing really," he said. "I'm living life to the fullest. I'm taking advantage of my situation. Up here with the Washington Redskins, practicing and working hard. I had some situations that happened down in Miami but with time everything will be worked out and we will move on."

Of the incident in Florida, he added: "It's just a life-changing thing that one shot of a bullet or whatever the case is, it changes lives. It's just, basically staying out of those kinds of things and staying out of harm's way."

People who knew Taylor didn't say he lived as much as he ticked. He could be moody and mercurial, once snapping at a team official after someone had taken his assigned seat on a team charter plane. He would also go out of his way to sign an autograph for a child or go on and on about his child.

"You can't be scared of death," Taylor said in a rare on-air interview with WTEM-AM reporter Holly Fantaskey last month. "When that time comes, it comes."

In the long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness answer, Taylor went on to mention children and "long life" and living "life to the fullest," and concluded, "I've been blessed and God has looked out for me, so I'm happy."

He is survived by his parents and his daughter. Funeral services are scheduled for next week in Miami, where a young man few of his fans knew will be buried at age 24.

"I don't pretend to know him as well as anyone, but I remember Sean was to himself," Stoops, his college coach, said. "He didn't care too much what others thought of him.

"I don't see the thuggish side of him at all, but I saw someone that didn't take [expletive] from anyone. And who knows where that leads young men to."