Taylor Pratt

[wbtfg]

Nice article on Taylor in Today's Chronicle. He sounds like a neat guy.

Student-athlete-daddy: MSU's Taylor Pratt juggles studies, basketball, three kids

By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Editor

Hey, college student-athlete, think dragging your weary tail out of bed for those 7:40 a.m. classes three days a week is drudgery?

Try joining Taylor Pratt for daily

2 a.m. baby feedings.

Think figuring out how to juggle classes, studying, practice and road trips is a colossal challenge?

Try helping Pratt with his daily trips to day care, regular diaper changes and nightly bed-time stories.

Think you've got just enough time and energy to toss a TV dinner into the oven after practice and before studying?

Try playing sous-chef for Pratt, who cares for his three children after practice while putting dinner on the table for his wife, Jami, upon her arrival home from her full-time job at Bozeman's Wal-Mart.

“It's hard,” concedes Pratt, a 21-year-old senior on the Montana State University men's basketball team.

“I guess you just get used to it.”

At this point in life, there is no escaping the draining cycle.

Jami's job is necessary to pay for the diapers, groceries and daycare for Cameron, 18-month-old Amauri and 3-month-old Mia. Taylor's 17 credit hours are necessary for the future they are building. Basketball is required to pay for the education.

Suffice it to say, the Pratts are mature beyond their years, and Taylor doesn't fit the prototypical hoop dreamer who lives for the game, savors the devil-may-care college lifestyle and fantasizes about the NBA's riches.

Having your first child at 17 will do that.

“It definitely humbles you,” Pratt said. “You've got to put yourself second, behind your kids. It puts extra perspective on life.

Agrees Jami: “When you get money, you don't spend it on yourself.”

Their cozy and tidy married-housing apartment on Julia Martin Drive is a reflection of their spartan lifestyle and focus on the family.

A pine Christmas tree bought from a lot - they cut their own last year up Hyalite Canyon, but Cameron cried over his struggles in deep snow - stands neatly decorated in a corner, stocked with gifts underneath.

Photos of family adorn the walls.

Where the typical student-athlete might have XBox games or GameCubes stacked near the television, the Pratts have children's movies; cartoons are playing on the television.

On Friday, Taylor, who fantasizes about becoming a chef, had a ham in the refrigerator to prepare for Christmas dinner.

They don't get out much.

“We used to go to movies,” Taylor said.

“We haven't done that in two years,” Jami added.

On a special occasion, like the anniversary of their marriage more than three years ago, they'll eat out. Teammate Marvin Moss and his girlfriend, Abigail, who live nearby with their daughter, will look after Cameron, Amauri and Mia.

Assistant coach James Clark and his wife sometimes babysit as well; the Pratts had Christmas dinner with Clark's in-laws in Livingston.

“He doesn't hang out much with everybody on the team,” Jami said of Taylor. “Really, he just stays home. He does just as much as I do.”

It has been that way since Cameron was born in 2001, about a year after Taylor and Jami met at a rollerskating park in Claremore, Okla., her hometown. Taylor's father, Revon, lived near Claremore, a town of 16,000 about 15 miles northeast of Tulsa, where Taylor was attending Will Rogers High School.

“I didn't notice her,” Taylor said of Jami.

Said Jami: “I noticed him because he was really tall. You can always tell somebody new in a small town.”

Eventually they met that day, exchanged phone numbers and kept in touch when Taylor moved briefly to Houston before returning to Tulsa.

Soon they were attending the 180 Church for teenagers on Wednesday nights, Jami's mother was bringing Taylor to their home after church on Sundays and Jami was venturing to his home on weekends.

When Jami became pregnant with Cameron, she moved into the Pratt home in Tulsa, where she lived until they were married in August 2002.

They were forced to grow up fast.

“Neither of us were partiers,” Jami said, “so for me it wasn't like a huge change.”

Nor did Cameron's birth have a dramatic impact on Taylor's life goals.

He mostly played baseball as a youth and was a solid basketball player who didn't earn any scholarship offers out of high school. He averaged five points and two rebounds at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, a two-year school about 100 miles up the Will Rogers Turnpike in Miami.

Jami quit school after her junior year in high school to raise Cameron and be with Taylor, who played well enough to catch the eye of MSU's coaches. It was his only Division I scholarship offer.

“I didn't realize it until my sophomore year in high school,” Taylor said of his basketball potential. “It definitely helps because college is expensive. It's a life-saver to get a full-ride scholarship.”

Of course, that meant coming to Bozeman, Mont., which might as well have been China for all the Pratts knew.

They say they like the town and its people, but Jami frequently is homesick and yearns for the day when she can count on family and friends to help out with her kids, so she can get her GED and maybe become a nurse.

She admits she calls her mother “two or three times a day.”

So Taylor is pressing to finish his degree by spring. Then they can move back to Oklahoma or perhaps to Texas, where he hopes to use his liberal studies degree to pursue a career in pharmaceutical sales.

“Jami really misses her family and I kind of miss Tulsa,” Taylor said.

Said Jami: “It'll be easier when we live there.”

In the meantime, they forge ahead with their sprint-till-they-drop lifestyle in Bozeman.

Truth be known, because they have become so accustomed to the routine of school, study, practice and child-rearing in the past four years, the only time either feels overwhelmed is when the Bobcats travel.

Jami must wake at 5 a.m., fix breakfast, get the kids ready for daycare and lug all three to the car, sometimes in sub-zero weather, before heading to Wal-Mart; the routine is reversed when she gets off work.

“It's really hard when he leaves,” she said.

Taylor is thus consumed by enough guilt, as he sits in a motel room watching television or studying, that he'll call several times daily when the team is out of town.

“I've got so much free time it's weird,” he said.

Certainly parenthood has changed Taylor's outlook on basketball, but don't mistake it for lack of competitiveness. He says he plays as hard as ever, and wants to win as badly as his teammates; he doesn't shrug off the fact that he's played less than a minute in the past four games.

“I've got the same drive as the other guys on the team,” he said. “It doesn't really change anything for me in that way. I always put school first before basketball, but I think I'm just as competitive as anybody else on the team.”

It's just that he doesn't brood after a defeat.

There's no time.

He has shrimp to fry, diapers to change and bed-time stories to tell. He has studies to squeeze between classes.

Some think being a student-athlete is the ultimate challenge.

“Just soccer and school is enough for me,” marvels Taylor's sister, Whitney, a college soccer player in Oklahoma who is visiting over the holiday break. “It's really tiring.”

Try being a student-athlete-daddy.

Certainly he's earned the respect of his teammates, who have refrained from calling him “Old Man” or “Gramps.”

“Having kids really adds another dimension,” Taylor said. “It's really draining. But being so used to it, I don't think about it. I just do it.

“It's been a long ride, but I wouldn't have it any other way.”

[bozbobcat]

I can't imagine going to school for 17 credits, playing basketball, and raising three kids at the same time. Wow. This clap is for you Taylor. Anyway, it's amazing that both he and Marvin Moss have kids and play basketball. Even though he hasn't played much as of late, Taylor Pratt represents MSU well. Way to go.

[duelalumnicat]

I agree. Taylor Pratt sounds like a great guy and a good father. I hope Mick
lets him play some during the remaining games.

[kooper]

Nice article, I had no clue Pratt was married with kids, I also wasn't aware that Moss had a child either.

[anacondagriz]

I am 26 w/only a full time job to worry about. The thought of having to take of & provide for just 1 kid makes me want to cry. Pretty neat story.