A youth football trainer in Georgia is under scrutiny for making a series of racist remarks in videos posted to social media.
Videos shared to Facebook Monday capture a man multiple news outlets identified as Mark Taylor repeatedly using racist epithets throughout several anti-Black screeds.
Taylor is a former University of Georgia defensive back, is the owner of Speed Edge Sports, a training facility in Macon, Georgia that claims to have trained more than 60 athletes who have played Division I football and 16 in the NFL.
In a series of videos published to Facebook, Taylor rants about the racial demographics while driving through Atlanta with repeated uses of racial epithets.
“Ain’t seen a white person in site … ain’t but Blacks up here,” Taylor can be heard saying in one video.
Taylor was a middle school and high school teacher from 1992-2007 until he was put on probation for stalking a teacher — his ex-fiancée — in 2007 and banned from Houston County, according to WGXA News in Macon. A judge later granted a request to remove the banishment.
So far, the Georgia High School Association, Clemson University and Central Fellowship Christian Academy, a private school in Macon, Georgia listed as the business address for Taylor’s Speed Edge Sports, have distance themselves or cut ties with Taylor.
“People have associated Mark Taylor with our ministry, and that is an error,” the Central Fellowship Christian Academy told The Daily Beast. “He is neither an employee of Central Fellowship Christian Academy nor a member of Central Fellowship Baptist Church. He has rented a portion of our facility to train athletes who are typically from schools in our local area.”
A Clemson Athletic Department spokesperson told The Daily Beast the university didn’t have a relationship with Taylor and he only ever visited campus as a guest of high school recruits.
The school released the following statement on behalf of its board of directors on Monday condemning and distancing itself from the trainer:
“We are shocked by the recent videos from Mark Taylor that have circulated on social media. We give no room for racism.
With this said, people have associated mark Taylor with our ministry, and that is an error. He is neither an employee of Central Fellowship Christian Academy nor a member of Central Fellowship Baptist Church. He has rented a portion of our facility to train athletes who are typically from schools in our local area …”
— Statement from the Central Fellowship Christian Academy Board of Directors (via Facebook)
His Twitter profile shows Taylor on college visits with athletes he trains, and includes pictures with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, Alabama’s Nick Saban and Florida State’s Mike Norvell.
Attempts to reach Taylor by phone Wednesday were not immediately successful.
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