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Obituary

Woman a spirited player in soccer, life

A 20-year-old's death leaves behind memories of past successes and thoughts of future endeavors.

By STEVE THOMPSON
Published July 6, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - She was headed to Winter Haven to spend the Fourth of July with her boyfriend.

The pair would rent a movie and eat takeout from Applebee's.

They would probably fight over the last mozzarella stick.

But something went wrong as Taylor Lynn Greene drove east along State Road 54 just east of Trinity.

Her Pontiac Grand Am drifted right and hit the curb several times. Then it spun - right into the path of a Chevrolet Suburban.

She died Monday night, July 4, 2005.

She was 20.

The crash left intact Greene's accomplishments as a star soccer player and a straight-A student at Ridgewood High School, and the mark she already had made on her parents, her coaches, her teammates and her friends.

The crash stole what seemed certain to be a golden future for a bright-eyed, blond, young woman who had plenty more in store for her than soccer.

When she graduated from Ridgewood in 2003, Greene was the second-highest goal scorer of the girl's team history, with 230.

During her first game for Florida Southern College the next year, her coach didn't put her in at first. Then, when she did go in, she scored twice. She was a starter after that, and she ended that season as the team's second leading scorer.

As good as she was at scoring, she was easily as good at passing. She made 60 assists during her four seasons for Ridgewood, a school record.

"She really didn't care who scored the goals," her mother, Janie Greene, said Tuesday. "She just wanted to win."

It was a fiercely ingrained competitive streak that Taylor Greene had since she was little. It carried over from soccer - which she had played since sixth grade, always wearing No. 18 - to her interest in a business career.

Her father, Lee Greene, remembers playing tennis with Taylor in the driveway when she was only 5 or 6. They bounced the ball back and forth, trying to keep it in the air.

"She'd make me face the sun so she'd have an advantage," he said.

When she was in sixth grade, her mother remembers, she'd charge the first- and second-graders 25 cents a hand to paint their nails with polish. She stuck to her price.

"Even if you were in preschool, she wouldn't cut you any slack," her mother said. But "she had very few dissatisfied customers."

By the end of the year, she had made $100.

It was not a surprise, then, that she would end up majoring in business at Florida Southern.

She and her boyfriend, Nolen Bailey, met in marketing class last semester. She sat near him, and they started talking about how tough the class was. He didn't waste time, suggesting they study together. She gave him her phone number.

That study session was the first of many.

"We never got a lot of studying done at all," Bailey recalled Tuesday. "We just ended up talking."

They were together about six months. Marriage already was in their vocabulary. Both hoped to join the business world.

"A tall building in a big city."

That was their plan, the pair would say.

They spoke on the phone just before she left to see him Monday. She had finished her shift as a hostess at Applebee's in New Port Richey. She just needed to shower and dress, and she would be there.

His last words to her: "Be careful."

He and her family were left to speculate on what caused her to veer from the road about 8:30 p.m.

Michelle Maurer, Greene's close friend of three years, came over to her New Port Richey home Tuesday to comfort her mother and father.

The two friends would spend hours on the beach together, soaking in the sunshine. It was one of Greene's favorite things to do. Before each beach trip, she insisted on stopping at 7-Eleven for a Slurpee, Coca-Cola flavored. She wouldn't drink fruit flavors because they changed the color of her mouth.

Michelle, 17, said Tuesday that Greene was the best listener, she lived in the moment, she was so much fun, she was the greatest person.

"She was my best friend," Michelle said. "She was my only true friend."

News of Greene's death trickled out Tuesday to her former coaches and teammates.

"The one thing I can remember is her laugh," said West Pasco Futbol Club's coaching director, Karl Kukec. "She was a happy person. She was just adorable. And the way she played, she played at 100 percent."

"She always had a smile on her face and she was hard on herself," said her coach at Ridgewood, John Herig. "It didn't help the world out by taking her. The world is definitely not a better place without her."

In addition to her parents, Greene left behind her siblings, Ben, Catie, Brian and Rebecca. A memorial service is to be held for her at Trinity Memorial Gardens at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Times staff writer Steve Lee contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 6, 2005, 00:50:11]