Former Phoenix Mercury guard Celeste Taylor has joined Grand Canyon as an assistant coach, she informed ESPN on Tuesday.
Taylor, who performed at Texas, Duke and Ohio State, joins the teaching ranks after spending her rookie marketing campaign within the WNBA with the Mercury, Connecticut Solar and Indiana Fever. Indiana chosen her No. 15 general within the 2024 draft, however Taylor — who’s recognized for her defensive prowess — performed many of the summer season for the Mercury (15 video games). Total, she averaged 2.6 factors, 1.3 assists and 1.3 rebounds in 14.9 minutes.
Taylor has been nursing a foot damage that she suffered whereas enjoying for the Sydney Flames within the WNBL, reducing brief her season in Australia. She tried to work her method again to full well being whereas with the Mercury for coaching camp, however she wasn’t a full participant till the ultimate preseason recreation and was in the end waived within the ultimate roster cuts earlier than the common season.
Taylor informed ESPN she is going to spend the summer season recovering from the damage and hopes to return to the WNBA in 2026.
“There have been groups who needed me to come back again this season, and I believe for me, it is making an attempt to get wholesome and making an attempt to keep up within the house of being match and taking a look at what’s proper for my physique, listening to my physique,” she stated.
Taylor hyperlinks up along with her former collegiate assistant coach at Duke, Winston Gandy, who’s taking up at Grand Canyon after serving on the staffs of Daybreak Staley at South Carolina and Kara Lawson in Durham. Teaching is a long-term aim for Taylor, who stated she has at all times loved working with youthful children, even at camps in faculty.
“When the chance introduced itself, it actually labored out completely with timing and every part,” Taylor stated. “As soon as I had defined to [Gandy] what the scenario is, of desirous to get wholesome but additionally desirous to comply with on this path of being a coach and having the chance of giving again to youthful children and being in that management position and simply persevering with to pour into student-athletes and provides them the perfect expertise, it is a no-brainer to take it.”
Grand Canyon boasted a national-best 30-game win streak final season underneath then-head coach Molly Miller and made its first NCAA Division I event look in program historical past. Miller then left to take over at Arizona State, and Gandy was employed from South Carolina.
“That is his first time as a head coach and it is at a program like GCU that is undoubtedly up-and-coming and rising and a fantastic college, however I am undoubtedly grateful for him giving me the chance,” Taylor stated. “He needs to place the perfect folks round him, so for him to look to me and consider in me, to have the ability to assist him is a blessing.”
Earlier than ending the season with Phoenix final 12 months, Taylor bounced across the league and made headlines by enjoying for 2 completely different franchises — Phoenix and Connecticut — on back-to-back days in August whereas on consecutive seven-day contracts.
Pivoting to teaching is simply one other instance of that adaptability.
“The journey that I have been on, it is by no means linear,” Taylor stated. “There’s a variety of up-and-down, so simply being prepared for every part, however on the identical time, I really feel prefer it has grown me into the individual that I’m in the present day. I am actually simply grateful for every part that I have been by.”