Covenant College Basketball

2012-13

Jessie Blankenship Callum Sears

[ athletics.covenant.edu ]

Covenant Basketball

About Covenant College Founded……………………………………………1955 President………………………………Derek Halvorson VP for Student Development………………Brad Voyles Director of Athletics……………………...Tami Smialek Assistant Director of Athletics…………….Tim Sceggel Assistant Director of Athletics……………..Kyle Taylor Senior Woman Administrator………..Meredith Atwood SAAC Advisor………………………….Aaron Messner Faculty Athletics Representative………...Rodney Miller Motto………………..“In All Things Christ Preeminent” Mascot……………………………Scots and Lady Scots Colors……………………………Royal Blue and White Our Mission The mission of Covenant College is to explore and ex-press the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things. We educate Christians to engage culture and cultures, to ex-amine and unfold creation, and to pursue biblical justice and mercy in community. With the student-faculty rela-tionship and strong teaching and scholarship at the foun-dation, our Christ-centered community seeks to help stu-dents mature in three primary areas: • Identity in Christ • Biblical frame of reference • Service that is Christ-like Our Core Beliefs • Confession: We affirm our Reformed historic

roots. • Calling: We value our specific calling for teaching,

mentoring, and learning, and for joyfully celebrat-ing and stewarding the gifts and callings of our stu-dents.

• Creation & Culture: We affirm the value of God's creation and its development in and through human cultural forms.

• Church: We embrace the communities of faith in which we do our work and will serve the church through our academic mission.

• Community: We value God's covenant faithfulness to us and his calling on us to be faithful to him and to one another in a primarily residential community.

History of Covenant College For more than 50 years, Covenant has pursued its mis-sion to explore and express the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things. Early Growth. Founded in 1955 in Pasadena, California, Covenant College needed to expand into new facilities after just one year. Several professors helped Covenant move to St. Louis, Missouri, into a building donated by Catholic sisters. Over the next eight years, the institution in-creased in size and outgrew its facilities. A Castle in the Clouds. The Lookout Mountain Hotel, built in 1928 with the South’s largest ballroom and 200 guest rooms, came up for sale when Covenant once again needed more space. The once-posh “Castle in the Clouds” seemed an ideal location for the College, and Covenant purchased and moved into the hotel in 1964. Since then, the College has significantly developed the campus and cultivated important ties with the Chattanooga community. An Enduring Symbol. Serving as a symbol of Covenant’s his-tory and purpose, the purple-flowered thistle was borrowed from Scotland’s national emblem. According to Scottish legend, the thistle played a vital role in victory at the Battle of Largs in 1262. Apparently, a barefoot invader unwittingly stepped on a thistle, howl-ing in pain and notifying Scottish defenders of the at-tack from King Harco’s men. The Scots won the battle and credited the thistle.

[ athletics.covenant.edu ] 2

Covenant Basketball

Head Coach Kyle Taylor (4th Season)

Kyle Taylor is entering his fourth year as the head coach of the Covenant College men’s basketball team. During the time that Taylor has been here the team has increased the win total each year, and is steadily becoming a quality basketball program on the court.

Coach Taylor is encouraged by the improvements he has seen in the program each year. He is insistent about changing the culture of the program and focused on de-veloping his guys into godly men on and off the court. Meekness, Servanthood, Accountability, Discipline, and Passion are the core values Taylor has imple-mented for the men’s basketball program over the past three years. He feels blessed by the opportunities he has had to communicate with some great recruits and enjoyed the opportunity to coach many of them.

On the court, Taylor is committed to working toward developing a team that is a successful regional power each year. He is passionate about coaching a team that is exciting to watch, competitive, disciplined, up tempo offensively, and great in transition play. The final year (2012-13 season) of transition into the NCAA Divi-sion III will be used as another year to develop the team into a strong contender for when Covenant joins the USA South for the 2013-14 season.

The men’s basketball program is committed first to developing players that repre-sent Christ on and off the court. As young men who will graduate and go into all kinds of disciplines, the coaching staff believes it is important that players learn to represent Christ, Covenant College, their academics, and their families with class. The basketball program at Covenant is therefore both a place to understand how to play competitive basketball for the glory of God and also develop into godly men who will continue to be used for Kingdom work upon graduating.

An important part of the basketball program during Coach Taylor’s time at Covenant has been the opportunity to travel on missions trips in order to use bas-ketball as a tool for sharing the Gospel with others. In May 2011, Taylor took his team to Greece, and in August 2012, several of his players traveled to Newark, New Jersey to conduct basketball clinics and share the Gospel. The team plans to travel on a missions trip to Costa Rica in December 2012.

Coach Taylor is a native of Salinas, CA. Taylor graduated from UCLA in 2005 with a double major in Business/Economics and Political Science. He received his M.S. in Health and Physical Education from Northwest Mis-souri State in 2008. Kyle and his lovely wife Shannon have two children (Kade and Quinn), and reside on Lookout Mountain. They are members at Rock Creek Fellowship.

[ athletics.covenant.edu ] 3

COACH PROFILE

Covenant Record…………...17-61 Career Record……………….17-61 College………………………….UCLA Bachelor’s Degree…Business/ Economics; Political Science Master’s Degree…………Physical Education (M.S.) Contact Information Address: 14049 Scenic Highway, Lookout Mountain, GA 30750 Phone: 706.419.1516 Email: kyle.taylor@covenant.edu