Taylor Steven has been around basketball her entire life. At an early age she knew she wanted to be a coach at the high school level.

“I’ve had lot of good coaches while I was growing up. My dad was always a good coach for me and I learned a lot from him,” Steven said. “When I grew up around all these people helping me, I just always knew basketball was an important thing in my life and I wanted to continue being a part of basketball.”

Steven recently got the head girls basketball coaching job at her alma mater Bishop Carroll Catholic High School. The Wichita product graduated from BCCHS in 2004 and continued her basketball career as a point guard at Wichita State.

Following her time at WSU, Steven was an assistant coach at Colorado State University for three seasons.

“The head coach at CSU was an assistant coach at Wichita State when I was there,” Steven said. “After I graduated, she called me and asked if I would join her coaching staff there.”

Steven spent three years and then made the decision to come back to Wichita. The decision to come back to Wichita was made before Stevens received the coaching job at Bishop Carroll.

“I was moving back to Wichita just because I missed my family, friends and really just missed Wichita,” Steven said. “When I moved back, it was a great opportunity when I noticed that the Bishop Carroll job was open.”

Steven will be taking over for her former coach Don Racine, who is the winningest coach in City League history. Racine compiled 565 victories, five league titles, 16 regional championships and a Class 5A State title during his tenure at Bishop Carroll.

“He left behind big shoes to fill. But he’s been very helpful and he’s given me a lot of advice,” Stevens said. “I’m going to start some new traditions, but going to keep the old ones that were working, especially the winning tradition. We’re going to try to keep that tradition going.”

After three years of coaching at the college level, Stevens realized she wanted to get into coaching at the high school level.

“I liked college coaching, but knew I wanted to get into high school coaching,” Stevens said. “I think high school coaching is a lot of fun to work with the young high school girls and Bishop Carroll is such a good school.”

Steven will join the teaching staff at Bishop Carroll this fall as the media specialist. She has already started her duties coaching at Bishop Carroll with a team camp that concluded last week.

“We just finished up team camp and I feel really confident in these girls. They work hard and they’re very coachable,” Stevens said. “Its good to know that they’re coachable so I feel confident in them and I feel like we have the work ethic to be competitive in the City League. I’m very excited about this opportunity.”