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Former Bucs LB Jermaine Taylor realized before his football career was over that he needed a plan for life after the NFL

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Building a Network

Apr 05, 2007 - In the summer of 2004 Jermaine Taylor, then a rookie with the Green Bay Packers, looked at the summer schedule and was pleased to see a month of downtime.

Like every team around the NFL, the Packers annually conclude their offseason program in June and let players and coaches enjoy one last extended vacation before the start of another grueling training camp. That seemed about right to Taylor; he’d been working hard at pursuing his NFL dream for months and could use a little recovery time.

A year later, Taylor was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after failing to make the Packers’ roster as an undrafted linebacker out of little Bridgewater College. The Bucs, too, sent their players off for one last month-long break before camp, and Taylor again used the time to rest.

The small but speedy linebacker impressed the Buccaneers in ’05 but didn’t earn a roster spot that year, either. He was re-signed by Tampa Bay in 2006 and allocated to NFL Europe for a season abroad. Given that even busier offseason schedule, one might have expected Taylor to particularly look forward to that final break before camp.

Instead Taylor, who knew he was still trying to overcome that “raw athlete” tag that followed him out of Bridgewater, had another thought brewing in his head. That month before camp might be put to better use if he looked at it outside of the context of the NFL calendar. He still planned to take a third crack at pursuing his NFL dream with the Bucs in August – he said so to Buccaneers.com just before that last break – but he was done sitting around and waiting. It was time to start working on an alternate avenue in case football failed to develop into a solid career.

“When you’re trying to make it in the NFL, there’s an element of being very single-minded about it,” said Taylor. “That’s understandable. You have a dream, it’s sitting there in front of you and you’re trying to reach out to it. But life comes at you hard, things can happen and you have to be prepared for them when they do. It’s always a good thing to have a Plan B, or even a Plan C.”

"We wanted to provide our players with an opportunity to network with visiting professionals. Some of the players might be looking to do an internship, some might just find an interest to pursue after football. Some of them just want to meet people and have good contacts."

So Taylor sat down at the desk of Eric Vance, the Buccaneers’ director of player development, and said he wanted to do…something.

“He came into my office and said he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he wanted to get started on it,” said Vance. “We looked at his resume, drew up a plan and called Raymond James Financial. Jermaine got an internship, and that proved to be a great opportunity for him.”

That meeting did indeed launch Taylor on a new and rewarding career. After the Bucs waived him following their 2006 training camp, he got a call back from Raymond James, which had been impressed with his work as an intern. Taylor accepted a rewarding position as a web administrator; this summer, there will be no month-long break.

The meeting also launched a project in Vance’s mind. Ten months later, that project came to fruition. On Wednesday at their gleaming new headquarters, the Buccaneers played host to what they will believe will be an annual event, a program called “When the Helmets Come Off.”

Wednesday’s event paired any interested Buccaneer players – as it turned out, there was a lot of interest – with a group of several dozen industry leaders, professionals and representatives of local businesses. The concept: provide an opportunity for networking and an exchange of ideas between the businesspeople and current Buccaneers who could see the value in planning for their futures beyond the NFL.

The invited guests included professionals from such successful businesses as Raymond James, BB&T, Miller Brewing Company, Fleming’s Steakhouse, Re/Max, WFLA-TV, Bob Wilson Dodge, The Staubach Company, Jerry Ulm Dodge, Hannah-Bartoletta Homes, Pepin Distributing, the Tampa Tribune and more. There were also representatives on hand from the Tampa Police Department, the University of South Florida, Athletes in Action, the University of Tampa and Sickles High School.

The guests gathered first in the expansive auditorium at One Buccaneer Place to hear from Vance and Bucs General Manager Bruce Allen, an enthusiastic supporter of the event. Vance implored them to have fun and share their business experience with the players and Allen thanked them for helping to strengthen the community as a whole.

“We wanted to provide our players with an opportunity to network with visiting professionals,” said Vance. “Our team is very good at understanding that life is more than just football. To provide them the opportunity to meet some professionals and learn more about an industry is great. Some of the players might be looking to do an internship, some might just find an interest to pursue after football. Some of them just want to meet people and have good contacts.”

After the introduction, the businessmen and women adjourned to the dining room for lunch and to await the players, who were just finishing up their morning workouts. Soon guard Dan Buenning ambled in and began chatting with Dave Ness of Raymond James Stadium and Jorge Diaz of Fleming’s. Ryan Nece came in next and struck up a conversation with Ervin Baker of Chik-Fil-A. Linebacker Jamie Winborn, dressed nattily in a suit and salmon shirt, came in and worked the room relentlessly, not bothering to eat for another two hours.

Soon, a steady stream of players came through the dining room doors, some of them with very specific goals for the lunch meeting. Among the players who took advantage of When the Helmets Come off were Buenning, Nece, Winborn, Bruce Gradkowski, Barrett Ruud, Matt Bryant, Alan Zemaitis, Nick Mihlhauser, Jermaine Phillips, Davin Joseph, Anthony Becht, Kalvin Pearson, Efrem Hill, Andrew Economos, Jon Bradley, Ellis Wyms, Chas Gessner, Will Allen, Jeb Terry, Darrell Campbell, Levon Thomas and Will Allen.

Pearson was one of those who came into the dining room with a plan. Armed with a list of attendees he headed straight for the table at which detectives Larry Brass and Ruben Delgado were seated. After a long meeting with the two TPD detectives, Pearson moved over to the table of Sickles High School football coaches Pat O’Brien and Jake Russell.

“This is a great event, especially for players to get opportunities to make contacts,” said an appreciative Pearson. “Sometimes you don’t know where to start to meet people. But this was nice. They let you know where everybody was, and the people I wanted to meet were here. It was a successful event.

“I always wanted to be a high school coach, and leaving high school I wanted to be a detective or police officer. So I got the background on what to do and how to get it done for both of those occupations. They gave me all the details, even the pay. I asked about their personal lives, I got the ups and downs about everything. Now all I’ve got to do is evolve the process.”

Vance prowled the room during the event and saw the beginning of many evolutions – new friendships, new opportunities, perhaps new dreams. He saw first-year fullback Jon Goldsberry, an aspiring businessman and web programmer, talk at length with former Buccaneer player Charley Hannah, partner in Hannah-Bartoletta Homes. He saw Jeb Terry take business cards from Pepin Distributing Director of On-Premise Sales and Marketing Bill Gieseking and University of Tampa Dean of Graduate Studies William Rhey. He saw Ellis Wyms listening intently to Miller Brewing Company Distributor Sales Manager Kevin Osborne and Winborn sitting between Lillie Espinosa and Dawn Frier of Lee Hecht Harrison, a human capital solutions firm.

Vance also saw fourth-year safety Will Allen use the event in another positive way, drumming up support for the scholarship program he has created in concert with former Brooks’ Bunch student Labrawn Saffold. Allen and Saffold’s program, called Quest for Real Life Success, is based at King High School but the two are hoping to expand it in the Bay area. As such, they attended Wednesday’s event in order to promote Quest and also to begin lining up possible business internships for their students.

“We want the kids to have the full story of life, to understand what it means to be business-minded, what it means to have some kind of protocol, discipline and responsibility,” said Allen. “We’re trying to help them put something beneficial on their resume and be more proactive about the future.”

Vance, who shaped the invite list in part based on interests expressed by players, was thrilled by the turnout on both ends and certain Wednesday’s extended lunch was the start of something lasting.

“This is the offseason, this is not mandatory, and guys were still here hours after the event started, talking to people,” he said. “Obviously, I have to thank our visitors for being willing to stay that long, too. Our players are used to wearing shorts to work, but they were dressed up for this event. They had slacks and dress shirts on…they absolutely took this seriously.”

Buccaneer management took the event very seriously, too. In fact, after getting a look at the guest list, Allen pushed the team’s coaches to get their players off the field on Wednesday morning in time to clean up and attend the lunch. He also remained in the room for most of the event, chatting with the guests and returning the favor by answering their questions about the football team. He, too, deemed the event a success.

“Our goals in this building are very simple,” said Allen. “Every day we want to make our team better. Every day we want to make our community better. And every day we want to make our players better. Today’s event is part of that effort.

“These players are living their dream. If we can help them get better as their dream is coming to an end, we feel like we’ve done well as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”