REPLAY: CEJAI TAYLOR & CHASE MOORE: Raising Black Children to Dream Big
“God could not be everywhere, so he created Mothers.” This adage could not ring more true when it comes to the life of C.J. Taylor. Her life story could be made into an Oscar-winning biopic, and believe me, it’s just a matter of time.
She is a divorced single mom of three, an attorney, and a football coach with over 20 years of experience - she is the first female coach in the Snoop Dogg’s youth football league, is the Former Director of Football Operations and Assistant Coach at Los Angeles Southwest College, and was an the Junior Varsity HEAD COACH and Assistant Coach on Varsity at Verbum Dei High School, a private all boys school in southern California. She has generated more than 45 millions dollars, sending hundreds of student-athletes to college on scholarships with over 300 NCAA programs including with Marist College, Univ. of Texas, TCU, Vanderbilt, FAMU, LSU, CAL, Boise State, USC, UCLA, Notre Dame, Syracuse and more.
She has single handedly raised three tremendously successful children: her daughter Mi-Calynn is a California State Licensed Nurse who is on the front line during the COVID pandemic. Caylin is a 2017 Rhodes Scholar, 2014 Fulbright Scholar, D-1 Student-Athlete and graduate of Texas Christian University, 2019 graduate of Oxford University, a current PhD candidate, and author of the NY Times bestselling memoir, A Dream Too Big. Last but not least Chase Moore, an Archer Fellow, Children’s Defense Fund recipient, and a recent D1Student-Athlete at the University of Texas at Austin victor of the 2019 Sugar Bowl, and member of the AFCA Allstate Good Works Team.
Though the family has witnessed many glory days, life has not been easy.
As written in an ESPN profile by Senior Writer Adam Rittenberg, CJ shares,
"We used to have a five-bath, four-bedroom house and seven vehicles. We had what looked like the Cosby life. It was like a Monet: From a distance, it looked beautiful, but up close, it was all messed up."
Inside those walls, C.J.'s now ex-husband, Louis Moore, was psychologically abusive toward her. She twice saw him physically abuse Caylin, who was just 2 at the time. In 2000, she left him, taking the children to live with her mother in Carson, on the border of Compton. She filed for divorce but still feared for their safety.
She always told her kids: “We may live in the hood, but the hood doesn’t live in us.”In 2004, she went to the hospital for heart surgery and came back in even worse shape. She was assaulted while being sedated, and later slipped into a depression. In 2009, her ex-husband was convicted of murder. He had a drunken argument with his girlfriend and fatally shot her with a rifle.
After weeks of her kids feeding her and bathing her, her middle child told her, “Get up, Mom. You’ve got to live. You’ve got three kids. We need you!”
That’s exactly what she did and she continues to give every bit of her soul to her children every single day.
Today, I am honored to welcome CJ Taylor and her youngest son Chase Moore to the show.
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