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# Ex-Corsairs take the ball and run with it in the NFL
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/see-land-page-5-ex-corsairs-take-the-ball-and-run-with-it-in-the-nfl/
- Published: 2004-05-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:18:36.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*SMC stars catching on*

SMC — Long regarded as one of the strongest junior colleges in California when it comes to academics, Santa Monica College has proven it can also hold its own on the gridiron.

Three former SMC football players will be lining up at wide receiver for different NFL teams this fall. Isaac Bruce of the St. Louis Rams played at SMC in 1991\. Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers and Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals played together for the Corsairs in 1997.

“It’s pretty unusual. A lot of teams are not blessed with great players like that,” said Robert Taylor, 59, a coach at SMC for the last 20 years. “You know, it brings back a lot of good memories — some bad, some good. These guys, they paid the price. All three of them are graduates, and we just like to look at them as ambassadors for the football program and the college.”

In turn, the players credit SMC and Taylor with playing an integral part in their success.

“I went to a black college in Oklahoma, Langston University,” Johnson said Friday. “I had some troubles, ended up on the West coast to better myself educationally, you might say. Of course it didn’t happen that way. I was really focused on the football aspect of life, and if it wasn’t for Taylor and some of the people at (SMC), I wouldn’t be where I am today.

“They stuck with me even though I was a knucklehead.”

Johnson, who then went on to Oregon State, was drafted by the Bengals in 2001.

He rose to the elite ranks of NFL receivers last season, leading the AFC with a Bengals franchise-record 1,355 yards. Smith transferred to the University of Utah, where he graduated in 1999\. A second-round draft choice of Carolina’s, he was the only rookie elected to the 2001 Pro Bowl and led the NFC that year with a 25.6-yard kickoff return average.

Bruce, a probable Hall of Famer who currently ranks 15th all-time in the NFL for receiving yards, left SMC to study at the University of Memphis and is entering his 11th season with the Rams.

SMC plays with 86 other California community colleges in the Western States Conference of the “large class” division, according to Taylor, who coached at Los Angeles Southwest College and North Carolina A&T State before coming to SMC in 1984\. Taylor was named head coach in 1994 and has since guided his team to three bowl games. Last year, Taylor was tapped as “Coach of the Year” in his division. recently returned to SMC to reunite with Taylor and former Corsair teammates Eugene Sykes and Anthony Cephas for the taping of an episode of “NFL Films Presents,” to be shown on ESPN this fall. Missing from the reunion was the fifth of the “Fab Five” wide receivers from SMC’s 1997 team. Demetrius Posey was killed in a March 2003 car accident in San Diego.

Taylor has kept in close touch with his former players, even while their careers have taken off. He recalled in the ESPN interview how Smith — on his way to the January Super Bowl against the New England Patriots, where he scored a first-half touchdown — called Taylor to ask how he was doing. Taylor also recalled visiting the athletes’ homes, getting special help for players with academic problems, and, at times, even calling Johnson’s grandmother when Johnson needed some familial encouragement.

“I treat them all the same — fairly — but I tell them there’s a responsibility, that they’ve got to go to class to get to the next level,” Taylor told ESPN.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 15, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051504.pdf?ref=smdp.com)