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Farmington's Layne Taylor looks to bring home state title alongside his dad

Layne is the leading scorer on his father Johnny's 29-0 Cardinals boys' basketball team.

FARMINGTON, Ark. — In the Taylor household, basketball season never ends.

“Basketball is one of the biggest things in our life,” said Layne Taylor, Farmington junior guard. “It’s basketball all-year round. You think basketball season ends, it’s over, it’s not. We’re constantly talking about basketball and trying to get better.

Layne is a star guard for the Cardinals.

His coach: his father Johnny.

“We’ve built our whole life around basketball and school, and me being able to spend this time with him and build the relationship that we’ve built means the world to us,” Johnny said.

Johnny has over two decades of coaching experience. That includes state titles at Wiener and an undefeated 36-0 season at Rose Bud in 2008.

That undefeated team inspires Layne.

“I still have the game where they won state, and there is no telling, I’ve probably watched that game 500 times,” Layne said. “When I was younger, I would watch it and then go play basketball. I would do that like every day.”

Now, instead of shooting in his driveway under the street lights, Layne gets buckets in the arena under the bright lights for a team that has hopes of doing what Rose Bud did in ’08.

Farmington is undefeated at 29-0, with Layne leading the charge at over 24 points per game.

“He’s a leader on the floor,” Johnny said. “He’s a coach on the floor. What I love about Layne the most is he’s a great teammate. He celebrates teammates’ success.”

His own success hasn’t come without hard work. 

At 5’11”, Layne is motivated to show people that just because he may be undersized, he shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I’m always trying to prove people wrong,” Layne said. “There’s always that, ‘oh, he’s not tall enough, not big enough, not fast enough.’ So that’s put a huge chip on my shoulder.”

However, his biggest motivation, is reaching the ultimate team goal.

“A lot of kids dreams is to play in the NBA, but being a coach’s kid and being around it so much, my biggest dream has always been to win a state championship with my dad,” Layne said.

“Bringing it back to Farmington would be really special, I love it here…. We would have a legacy as being the best team to play at Farmington, so that’d be special, and winning it with my dad, that’s been my dream for a long time.”

This year, he’s as close to that dream as ever, and of adding one more game to his archives to watch 500 times.

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