Benjy Taylor, architect of Tuskegee University’s men’s basketball resurgence, earned SIAC Coach of the Year honors after guiding the Golden Tigers to a 20-win season while navigating a shocking viral moment.Taylor’s squad clinched the No. 1 seed in the SIAC West Division with a 20-7 overall record behind a roster that included multiple All-SIAC selections. Guard Kusamae Draper was named conference player of the year.The honor arrives amid lingering fallout from Jan. 31, when Taylor was handcuffed and escorted off the court by police following a 77-69 loss at Morehouse College.Video that exploded across social media showed Taylor—calmly asking officers to enforce conference security protocols amid Morehouse football players mingling aggressively in the handshake line—being grabbed, cuffed, and marched into a hallway weight room.Taylor, who wasn’t charged with any crime and rejoined his team for the bus ride home, called the episode “heartbreaking” for his players and family to witness. “I was simply trying to get the football team out of the handshake line as they were yelling obscenities,” he told reporters. “It was a very dangerous situation.”Coach Taylor later retained civil rights attorneys Harry Daniels, Gregory Reynald Williams, and Gerald Griggs to “pursue all legal avenues, including a potential civil suit against Morehouse and the unnamed police agency.“To put a respected coach like Taylor in chains in front of his team is disgusting,” Daniels said.
