“Go Troy! Go Troy!” is the mantra of 3-year-old Brooks Taylor, a die-hard Trojan football fan and the son of two Troy University employees.
While a reporter met with Brooks and his parents — Aaron Taylor, the TV production coordinator for TrojanVision, and Robbyn Taylor, a lecturer in the Hall School of Journalism and Communication — he played and threw small footballs around his father’s office while talking about all that he loved about Troy football.
He was 6 weeks old when he went to his first Troy sporting event, said Robbyn Taylor.
“It’s interesting watching kind of his evolution of sports and the understanding of it,” she said.
“I like to dance and cheer,” he said. When his mom asked him what the Trojan players do, he simply answered, “Win today!”
In addition to the football, Brooks loves to enjoy the other sights and sounds of the game: the planes and helicopters that fly over, the band, the cheerleaders and the food. Brooks always enjoys the game with a bucket of popcorn, a Powerade and a pretzel.
Despite his age, Brooks can sing the fight song, cheer for Troy and even pose like the player on the Heisman Trophy. On occasion, he pretends to conduct the band or play an imaginary instrument made by holding his hands in front of his mouth.
According to his parents, when watching a Troy game on TV, Brooks holds an imaginary flag and runs across the room like the cheerleaders across the end zone.
He has even been known to cheer in his sleep, said Robbyn Taylor, recalling the recent game against the University of Akron.
“He had fallen asleep, and when we got possession of the ball back and everybody cheered, he kept sleeping, except his little arm went like this,” she said while pumping her arm.
Above all, however, he idolizes his favorite player, Jordan Chunn, one of Troy’s running backs, known to many, including Brooks, as MegaChunn.
“He’s strong, he’s fast and he jumps,” Brooks said.
“He’s strong, he’s fast and he jumps,” Brooks said.
Robbyn Taylor explained that the two originally met at a Trojan Walk. Chunn recognized Brooks from a video that his parents had posted that showed Brooks cheering for MegaChunn.
“(Chunn) was walking by and recognized him (Brooks) from Twitter, and he turned around and came back and gave him a big hug and made his day,” she said.
“After that, for a long time, if you asked him who his best friend was, he’d say ‘MegaChunn!’ ”
Chunn, a senior criminal justice major from Gurley, recalled the video of Brooks.
“I remember seeing it after a ballgame and retweeted it, and after that, I’ve been a big fan of his,” Chunn said about Brooks. “Just to see the brightness on his face, to just see how he gets enjoyment out of it — it’s bigger than football.”
“You never know who’s watching you,” he said. “Just like putting a smile on those younger guys’ faces is a blessing.”
Since the first video, Chunn still follows Brooks on his parents’ social media.
“He knows the fight song and everything,” he said. “It’s just crazy.
“Some people at the school don’t even know the fight song.”
“He’s been a Troy fan from the very beginning,” Aaron Taylor said. “Brooks can barely read at his age, at this point, but there’s one word he knows: Troy.
“The first letter he knew was T.”
Brooks has gone from simply liking the sights and sounds of the events, to watching and paying attention to the games. He now repeats what he hears around him or asks questions like “What is them doing with them flags?”
“I really have no doubt that, in some capacity, he’s gonna be on that field one day, either marching with the band or playing football,” Robbyn Taylor said.
“There was no way he wasn’t going to be a Troy fan, just because he inherited two very loyal Troy parents,” Aaron Taylor said.
Commentaires