For nearly 40 years, the Rider wrestling program enjoyed national respect and recognition, thanks to Head Coach Gary Taylor.
He finished his illustrious 39-year career in 2017 with 442 dual victories, which ranks third all-time in NCAA Division I. He capped his career with his 16th and 17th All-Americans in Chad Walsh and Ryan Wolfe in 2017 and six of his wrestlers earned All-America status in his last 11 years. He sent a wrestler to nationals 173 times. Taylor coached 110 individual conference champions, his teams won 14 team conference championships and he won nine conference Coach of the Year honors, his last coming in 2017.
The 2016 Eastern Wrestling League Coach of the Year, Taylor led the Broncs to their first EWL Title in their third year in the league, and took six wrestlers to the 2016 NCAA Championships.
For the second year in a row Taylor came home from Madison Square Garden with a Rider All-American, as the Broncs finished 24th at the NCAAs.
In the fall of 2010 Taylor was presented with the Frank N. Elliott Award for dedicated service to Rider University and in 2014 was presented with the prestigious Rider University Sesquicentennial Medal of Excellence, a medal that has been established in the 150th anniversary of Rider, to recognize members of the Rider family for their exemplary achievements that have brought honor to the University.
When Taylor came to Rider in 1978 to succeed the program's founder, National Wrestling Hall of Famer Barry Burtnett, he set forth a goal of bringing eastern and national recognition to wrestling on the Rider campus. This he has done, with a 429-246-4 dual meet record at Rider, against the toughest level of competition in the East.
The 1988, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997, 1998 and 1999 East Coast Wrestling Association Coach of the Year, Taylor has turned out 107 conference champions, including 11 in three years in the EWL and has taken 169 Broncs to the NCAA Championships, including 12 in the last two years and 56 in the last 11 years.
Rider has won conference championships in 1984, '86, '88, '89,'90,'91,'93,'94, '96, '97, '98, '99, 2000 and 2016 and finished runner-up in the CAA three times in the last nine years in the conference, including 2012-13, and was runner-up in the EWL in 2015.
Taylor guided Rider into a new league, the EWL, for the 2013-14 season, and was 4-2 in the EWL with three individual champions and five more NCAA Qualifiers.
In 2014-15 the Broncs were ranked as high as 10th in the nation and finished 27th in Division I at the NCAA Championships.
The pinnacle of Taylor's career came in 1997, when the Broncs cracked the top ten in the national poll and were ranked seventh in the nation over the final five weeks of the season by the Amateur Wrestling News.
In 1996 he escorted nine Broncs to the NCAA National Championships, where only perennial national champion Iowa had more with 10, and finished the dual meet season ranked 24th in the country. In 1993 his Broncs finished the dual meet season ranked 19th in the nation and finished 26th in Division I at the Nationals.
In 1997, Taylor came home from Nationals with three All-Americans and added another in each of the next three seasons.
Taylor holds an honors degree in health and physical education from East Stroudsburg University, where he assisted the wrestling program for two years, and a master's degree in school administration and supervision from Rider.
