College students live busy lives. As if the demand of school is not enough, part-time jobs and other activities can sometimes leave students overloaded and overwhelmed. Time is scarce, and students learn how to budget every second to their best advantage.

Senior Robbie Taylor knows this problem all too well. Now in his second stint at Illinois, Taylor has become a master of time management, juggling schoolwork, a part-time job and basketball all in the same semester.

Taylor is an assistant coach on Illinois’ wheelchair basketball team, and even though he is not handicapped, he has been an influential member of the team.

“Sometimes you forget that he is an undergraduate student, and to have this much responsibility, coaching at the level he is, says an awful lot about him,” said Illini head coach Mike Frogley.

Standing over 6 feet tall, Taylor never played organized sports in high school, even though he has the look of a former athlete. Instead, he worked part-time after school – first at a White Hen Pantry, then later at an Italian restaurant called Marchenetti’s.

In addition to his other boyhood jobs, Taylor also assisted his uncle, Jim Taylor, as a team manager for the RIC Express – a women’s wheelchair basketball team located in the Chicago area.

Born with polio, Jim Taylor had spent most of his life in a wheelchair. At a fairly young age he began participating in wheelchair basketball, and from 1967 to 1971 was a member of the Illinois “Gizz Kids” wheelchair basketball teams. The “Gizz Kids” won back-to-back national titles in 1969 and 1970.

After his college career, the elder Taylor spent several years playing for a pair of Chicago club teams before becoming a head coach.

His playing career had a profound effect on Robbie, who, despite not being handicapped, was also introduced to wheelchair basketball at a young age. The more time Taylor spent around the game, the more he wanted to be a part of it, and when he arrived on campus in August of 1999, he was eager to join the team.

Taylor’s uncle Jim expected him to be successful, citing that his personality and advanced knowledge of the game could prove to be helpful.

But Frogley was not yet ready to give the young Taylor coaching responsibilities, so he gave him different menial tasks.

As he continued to learn under Frogley, he was given more responsibility and a greater workload.

Because he was only 18, the load was more than he could handle, and eventually he lost control.

On one occasion during his freshman year he fell asleep while behind the wheel of the team van on the way to a tournament in Alabama, nearly putting the van in the ditch. As Taylor looks back on the occasion he starts to laugh, a kind of hesitant, dry laugh to cover an otherwise awkward pause created by the past memory.

After only a year and a half, he dropped out.

“My grades weren’t really all that great, and I didn’t have the money to continue going to school,” Taylor said. “I got an offer from a company out in Tucson, Ariz., so I moved out to Tucson and took that job.”

The job was for financial data consultant Dun & Bradstreet, a business consulting firm. Originally a business major, the job seemed like a good choice for Taylor.

Initially, the independent Taylor enjoyed his new surroundings, but after two and a half years he realized he had made a bad decision.

“I got tired of that job and moved back to Chicago, reapplied for school and got back in,” he said.

After changing his major to sports management, Taylor decided to go back to Frogley and ask for his old job back. Frogley immediately noticed a change in Taylor’s maturity and graciously took back his former ball boy.

“I felt like you could see in just the way he presented himself that he was a lot more mature, and he was ready to take on a lot more responsibility, and that he kind of coveted that,” Frogley said. “He wasn’t just there for the ride – he wanted to learn more, he wanted to do more. So it was really easy to give him a lot more to do.”

As for basketball, Taylor’s coaching talents have always been his strength. He is the type of person that coaches with the enthusiasm of a former player, which is a result of his competitive personality.

Earlier this year he was called for a technical foul and now looks back at the moment and casually shrugs.

“You get one technical and all of a sudden you’re a bad guy,” he said.

And even though Taylor is not handicapped, he has never had a problem connecting with players. Because he has gone through the same problems they have, he is seen as a big brother figure, someone who has “been there.”

“He is very even keeled and easy to talk to,” said senior forward Adam Lancia.

Junior guard Josh George agreed, adding that one of Taylor’s greatest strengths is how he identifies with his players.

“He is intense in the way that you can still get along with him, and he really knows the game for an able-bodied person,” George said.

That knowledge of the game comes from his experiences. In addition to working with Frogley, Taylor also spent most of last summer as an assistant coach for the USA women’s national team, in preparation for the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece.

The experience taught him how to bring different players together and still be successful, and because Frogley did not coach the team, it allowed him to see the game from a different perspective.

“He’s got a really good eye for strategy,” Frogley said. “He’s really had some great feedback for us throughout the year, some really subtle things that we need to fix.”

As Frogley finishes speaking, Taylor slowly eases back in his chair, as if to confidently give his seal of approval. Now 24 years old, it is obvious that he has come a long way since his water boy days.

And just like one of Taylor’s favorite sayings, “It’s funny, because it’s true.”