Abilene names Kyle Taylor to head boys basketball coach
May 2—Abilene High School has promoted assistant boys basketball coach Kyle Taylor to succeed Erik Graefe as head coach of the Cowboy basketball program.
Taylor, a graduate of Augusta High School, is a veteran basketball coach that played for his father and former Abilene High School coach Terry Taylor at Augusta and won the Class 4A State Championship in 2002.
After high school, Taylor played basketball at Fort Scott Community College for one season and one season at Butler County Community College. He finished his collegiate career as a walk-on at Kansas State University.
While doing his student teaching in Manhattan, Taylor was the Riley County High School freshman boy's basketball coach and finished 8-11 that year. He then moved to Andover Central High School as an assistant coach. Taylor's freshmen teams went 63-13 during his four seasons at Andover Central.
Taylor became the head coach of Goddard High School for the 2011-2012 school year where his teams were young and inexperienced in the tough AVCTL conference. After seven seasons at Goddard, Taylor and his family moved to Abilene to teach and coach.
Upon moving to Abilene, he began as an assistant coach at Abilene Middle School and led the Longhorns to an NCKL championship. Kyle began coaching at AHS as the freshman coach in 2019-20. His teams have gone 83-13 in five seasons and he has helped build and continue the success of the Cowboy Basketball Program.
"I am excited for the opportunity to be the varsity coach here at Abilene High School," Taylor said. "Becoming the coach at AHS has been a goal of mine for a long time. I look forward to continuing to build the great tradition we have within the Abilene basketball program."
"We have a great group of guys returning at the varsity level that I got to coach as freshmen and I am excited to see all the great things they can accomplish," he added.
