Southwestern Community College inducted the 1998-99 Spartan men’s basketball team and Head Coach Bill Taylor into the Southwestern Athletic Hall of Fame during a ceremony held on Friday, Dec. 3, 2021, in the SWCC Student Center. The Hall of Fame event started at 5:30 p.m. with the women’s basketball game, followed by a Hall of Fame reception between games. The men’s basketball team played at 7:30 p.m. and the Induction Ceremony itself was held during halftime of the men’s game. The Spartans faced Ellsworth Community College during the games.

This Hall of Fame induction ceremony was originally scheduled to take place on Friday, Nov. 22, 2019, but was postponed due to the sudden passing of Taylor on Nov. 7, 2019. Taylor’s passing left a tremendous void at Southwestern and the college continues to miss him today. He was a fixture at the college and the hope is with this induction, as well as the establishment of an endowment through the college’s Education Foundation, Taylor’s legacy will continue to live on forever.

Throughout his working career at Southwestern, Taylor balanced professional and coaching duties. Taylor was initially hired at Southwestern as a business instructor in 1991. He served as assistant coach for the Southwestern men’s basketball program from 1991-93 under Steve Forbes, who is now the head coach at Wake Forest University. In 1993, Taylor took over at the helm of Spartan men’s basketball. In December 1998, Taylor moved from business instructor to director of the Small Business Development Center. Taylor continued as head coach for the Spartans until 1999. That year, he moved back into the role of assistant coach, and assisted his former player and then Head Coach Mike Morley until 2002, when Taylor moved from the Small Business Development Center director position to become Southwestern’s director of student services. In 2008, Taylor became the college’s vice president of instruction and he served in that role until he succumbed to an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer in 2019.

During Taylor’s head coaching run for the Spartans, he achieved an overall record of 134-62, a .684 winning percentage. He was named NJCAA District 4 Division II Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year and Region XI Division II Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year in 1999. Taylor’s 1996-97 team held the single-season win mark at 25 until it was tied by his 1998-99 team; again tied by Head Coach Todd Lorensen’s team in 2015-16; and toppled by 26 wins from Lorensen’s 2016-17 team.