Role model for younger athletes

Taylor Briley exemplifies what coaches want in a young athlete. The coaches who instructed Briley at Creston High School seem to be in agreement about that fact.

As a leader, as a worker and as a talent, Briley has been the type of player that people inside and out of her circle can point to as a role model.

When presented with the South Central Iowa Athlete of the Year Award, Briley was gracious but wasn’t overwhelmed by the honor. Her demeanor was cool and collected, just as it is when she performs.

“She doesn’t take things too seriously. I mean that in the right way,” Creston softball coach Mike McCabe said. “She doesn’t think she’s better than anybody. As good a teammate as she is as, she’s as good a player in any of those sports.”

Briley played basketball, ran track and excelled in softball.

She was a part of the first two teams in Creston’s time as a five-player basketball squad to post winning records. She was a state qualifier and conference champion in track. She topped it off as an all-state performer in softball. She was an all-academic performer, as if the athletic exploits weren’t enough.

Briley, the daughter of Treana and Chad Briley, beamed as she talked about receiving the award.

“It’s definitely a great honor because all of the other finalists that were in there, they’re all amazing athletes and I got to play with two of them,” Briley said. “I know the others so getting this award means a lot because there are so many great athletes and to know that I was one of them is a really good feeling and I feel very honored.”

Far from soaking up the spotlight herself, Briley was quick to credit her teammates for pushing her and being a part of the success she has achieved. It didn’t hurt to have two finalists for this award competing with her in several sports in Jenna Taylor and Alli Thomsen.

“They are who I am. They made me the player I am,” Briley said. “I would love to be able to share it with everybody because without my teammates I wouldn’t be the person I am. I mean on relays, softball, basketball, you’re never by yourself. They always are pushing you.”

Family rivalry

The Briley family pushes one another. That’s known to Taylor’s coaches, just as it was known to the coaches of her sister, Katlin, and brother Bryce. Katlin played collegiate softball at Des Moines Area Community College and Briar Cliff University, and Bryce is a runner on the cross country team at Northwest Missouri State.

Taylor’s father Chad is a coach on the Creston/O-M football team and played wide receiver and was one of the top punt and kick returners in the country for Drake University. Treana, Taylor’s mother, ran cross country and track for four years and played basketball and softball for two years at Creston when she was in high school.

The athletic genes run rampant in the family. The urge to succeed runs through their veins, and they all push one another to constantly do better.

“I have a lot of people who push me. Definitely my parents and my siblings because we are the most competitive family,” Briley said. “...We’re always pushing each other saying ‘well I did this, OK well I’m going to do better next time.’ “

The drive instilled in Briley by her family came for several years at track practice from her brother, Bryce.

“In track, my brother would always give me a time to push so I would just be thinking I need to get that time,” Briley said. “But mostly I really think I can do this, I am able, I have the ability, I just need to show my ability and prove I can do it.”

Now little brother Brandon Briley, who heads into the fifth grade, is next in line to take on the familial pressure as a Panther athlete.

Hoop dreams

Commanding the helm of the offense of the basketball team, Briley handled the point guard duties for a girls basketball program that is finally on the up. With Creston posting records of 12-11 and 13-9 over the last two years respectively, Briley was a leader in bringing the program its first two winning seasons since the Panthers made the move to five-on-five ball.

Briley has reason to be proud of her accomplishments in basketball.

“We showed people that we could play as a basketball team,” Briley said. “Creston girls basketball has not always been seen as a great basketball team. I think now with us and all the younger girls we’ve shown that Creston girls basketball can be a really good team.”

New Creston coach and former assistant Ryan McKim’s view of one of his stars was certainly overwhelmingly positive.

“Teams take on the personality of their leader, whether that’s a coach or kid on the floor,” McKim said. “Taylor has certainly defined toughness and working hard and competing and those are things we’ve tried to build in our program.”

Briley was a second team all-conference performer, second on the team in scoring, and used an improved stroke to help lead the team from beyond the three-point line.

“They (basketball coaches) both pushed me a lot in basketball because yeah, basketball wasn’t my favorite sport, but (Brent) Douma telling me that I could shoot, so getting that ability to shoot the three definitely meant a lot,” Briley said.

Sprinting to success

As a runner, Briley shined most brightly her senior year with the help of teammates. Even running 400 and 800 meter events well herself, she helped the Panthers track and field team to strong showings at the Hawkeye 10 Conference championships, where she helped the Panthers win two relay championships and at later the Co-ed State Track Meet.

“She liked the bright lights,” Creston track and field coach Clay Arnold said.

Briley was a five-time state meet medalist, showing off her speed in multiple different relays and medleys. Arnold noted that Briley came out hungry at state, and that competition fueled her like nothing else.

She is part of two school-record relay teams, and followed a tremendously talented couple of classes.

“The senior class ahead of her had a lot of success and she was always right there with them, Arnold said.

“I’ll miss (coach) Arnold a lot,” Briley said.

Super slugger

A five-year varsity softball career came to an end in Fort Dodge, the second consecutive year that Briley helped lead the Panthers to the state championships.

A second team all-state performer, Briley was near the top of many of the offensive statistical categories for Creston and handled much of the pitching duties as well.

Her performances in the pitching circle proved strong at the right time, as Briley allowed a total of three runs over two games to Winterset and Glenwood to send the Panthers back to state.

“Softball making it to state again was really awesome and so it was a really great senior year to end,” Briley said.

The power and natural hitting ability she demonstrated earned her notoriety. She ended up not only playing in the Iowa Girls Coaches Association All-Star Series, but even signed with National Junior College Athletic Association Division II power Des Moines Area Community College.

In the all-star series at Waukee High School, she played with and against a total of six future teammates. Briley showed off the power of her bat with a go-ahead three-run home run in the day’s first game. It gave her the confidence and ecstasy to enjoy the day with her future teammates.

It’s far from just her talent that made her enjoyable to coach. McCabe called her a “coaches’ dream.”

“I think she really respects and trusts her coaches, which is a refreshing thing,” McCabe said. “She just always does what you want, does it at a high level with good energy and good effort.”

2016 legacy

Even with the success that Creston girls athletics have had in sports like softball and track in recent years, Briley has a strong feeling that the class of seniors she was a part of leaves a lasting legacy.

“Coming in to this year people probably didn’t think we were going to be as good because we lost such a great class. I think this group of girls sticks together,” Briley said. “I think showing that we stick together because we’ve had five or six seniors in every sport that I was in this year —and normally you don’t have that many seniors graduate from sports — so we’ve all stuck together and I think it shows if you stick together you can do great things.”

With Briley now headed to DMACC, many will point to her as an example of how athletes must act, work and lead to achieve great things.