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Different Strokes

Longtime swim instructor Ken Taylor knows how to get results.

Written by Nancy Sokoler Steiner | Photographed by Micheal Neveux

Standing in the pool guiding his student, 72-year-old Ken Taylor directs the 9-year-old to float on his back, then rotate onto his stomach and swim six strokes toward his instructor. The boy’s mother, Jayme Schoch, smiles and shakes her head. “He used to be so afraid of the water,” she says of her son. “Now he looks forward to lessons.”

“I encourage, never discourage,” says Taylor, a fixture of the South Bay swimming community since he started teaching in 1973. He swam in high school and, after a four-year stint in the Navy, enrolled in classes to learn how to teach the sport. A friend’s mother, also a swim trainer, encouraged him to start teaching babies to swim. There were no male teachers at the time, and Taylor built a reputation as a patient and effective baby instructor.

In the years since, he has trained students of all ages, predominantly children and adolescents. His experiences include coaching the swim teams at Hawthorne, Leuzinger and Narbonne high schools. He worked at South Bay Swim School and with the swim team at South End Racquet and Health Club, where he grew the group from 10 to about 50 members. He has also coached Special Olympians, including one who earned a gold medal in the national competition. Today, Taylor is on staff at the Palos Verdes Beach and Athletic Club (PVBAC), where he also gives private lessons.

Taylor has prepared hundreds of children to pass the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Junior Lifeguard test. Open to youth ages 9 to 17, the test involves swimming 100 yards within a certain time frame. He’s been the Junior Guard prep instructor at PVBAC since he started there in 1996.

“It’s not a picnic,” he warns participants who take the prep class. “It’s always challenging.” Taylor emphasizes stroke and form, starting students at one pool length and working them up beyond the required distance. He teaches them to pace themselves so they don’t run out of steam before they can finish.

Nikki Zamora knew where to turn when her daughter expressed interest in becoming a Junior Lifeguard. “He’s the one to go to,” she says, referring to Taylor. “Everybody knows him.”

She signed her daughter up for private lessons with Taylor to learn the basics. The child could tread water but couldn’t swim freestyle when she started. “He worked on her form, and in the last two or three months, I’ve really seen progress,” says Zamora.

To develop proper positioning of her arms, Taylor has his student hold a hollow tube straight in front of her nose in alternating hands as she completes each stroke. “You gotta reach,” he tells her.

The 9-year-old loves her lessons, reports Zamora, who says her daughter was one of the few to continue taking them through the winter. “I’ve heard he’s tough, but I haven’t seen it. He’s very kind and has a lot of patience.”

In addition to his teaching abilities, Taylor is known for some idiosyncrasies. He used to ride his unicycle the length of the pool and back, paralleling his students, until the practice was discontinued for safety reasons. He wrestled professionally for 10 years on the independent circuit. And when the South End swim team dared him to shave his head and grow a beard if they made California Interscholastic Federation, he complied.

But when it comes to his philosophy of teaching, he grows serious: “I teach from the heart. I think of my students as a piece of clay, and I’m trying to create something that’s going to last them a long time.” •

Left: Ken Taylor with swim students (left to right) Jack Prindle, Colin Hopper, Jack Hopper, Jordan Fujita, Hudson Nuccio and Noah Freeman

Winning Combination

Professional AVP beach volleyball player Emily Day makes her mark on the sand and in the classroom. She balances her time traveling the world for volleyball tournaments with running Mathlete Tutoring, her company that helps high school students excel in math.

Athletics and academics add up for professional beach volleyball player Emily Day.

Written by Nancy Sokoler Steiner | Photographed by Vincent Rios

At the Hermosa Beach Trader Joe’s, a scoreboard keeps track of how many times professional beach volleyball player Emily Day scores an ace (serves a ball that isn’t returned and thus results in a point). For each ace she makes, Trader Joe’s donates $100 to a food charity.

As of early July, she’d made 27 aces. But that number was sure to grow: Day was heading to Portugal the following week for the Beach Pro Tour Challenge and had numerous competitions remaining in the season. Last season, she scored an impressive 55 aces, resulting in a $5,500 donation to New Challenge Ministries’ Fresh Rescue Food Bank in Torrance.

Growing up in Torrance, Day played team volleyball at West High School as well as at Loyola Marymount University. After her team was asked by their LMU coach to play some beach volleyball tournaments, Day fell in love with the sport. She qualified for her first Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tournament—the largest professional volleyball tour in the U.S.—while still in college.

“You can’t beat the lifestyle,” says Day, age 32, while she takes a quick break two days before competing in the Hermosa Beach Open. “We’re playing outside at the beach, there’s the healthy, active lifestyle and our involvement with the community. The South Bay community really follows beach volleyball.”

Since graduating from LMU in 2009, Day has racked up a host of accomplishments. They include earning a gold medal in the FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) competition in Haiyang, China, and taking home nine AVP tournament titles, including twice for the Manhattan Beach Open and twice for the Hermosa Beach Open.

She’s played in competitions around the globe, traveling to countries including Australia, China, Germany, Rwanda and Switzerland. “When you’re touring, it’s the same group of people playing each other around the world,” she explains. “On the court, we’re competitors, but then we’ll all go out to dinner together. One of my best friends is a Brazilian player.”

As a student, Day never imagined beach volleyball could become a profession. Her parents stressed the importance of academics, and Day majored in math in college. To supplement her income, she began tutoring local high school students. She contacted her old high school teachers, who sent her more referrals. The business grew thanks to word of mouth, and Day opened Mathlete Tutoring, a professional tutoring company.

“We want to be more than tutors; we want to be mentors,” she says. “You can be a great athlete and a great student. You don’t have to be one or the other.”

Day embodies the sentiment as both an elite beach volleyball athlete and a student earning her master’s degree in applied math at Cal State Long Beach. “The habits that make you a good student are similar to those that make a good athlete: working hard, being prepared and being responsible,” she points out.

On occasion, her worlds of sports and tutoring overlap. One student called her asking for help with a math problem when Day was in China for a competition. “She responded promptly and did a FaceTime session with my daughter while she was on the bus!” reported the parent. “Amazing!”

“I want to break the stereotypes that a jock or a blond female doesn't belong in the STEM world," says Day. For that endeavor, she gets an A+. •

Paying It Forward

Retired Manhattan Beach police chief Derrick Abell finds satisfaction in mentoring.

Written by Nancy Sokoler Steiner | Photographed by Micheal Neveux

A law enforcement officer’s creed is to protect and serve. Derrick Abell adds another precept: to mentor. Chief of the Manhattan Beach Police Department (MBPD) since 2018, Abell retired in 2021 but continued to fulfill that role as interim chief until this month when his replacement was found.

As a leader, he says, “I really embrace the opportunity to share my experience, teach and be a role model to the people coming through the ranks, the people I’m responsible for and the community I serve.”

In his more than 30 years on the MBPD, Abell has held a variety of roles. They include D.A.R.E. officer, SWAT team member and commander, police lieutenant and field operations division commander. He became chief in 2018—the first African American to fulfill that role.

Abell found fulfillment in establishing relationships with the community, initially with students, teachers and administrators in his role as a D.A.R.E. officer. “I like being out in the field and dealing with people and problem solving,” he says.

Those relationships inform his desire to pay it forward. “If you’re a leader who truly appreciates your role and the responsibility you have, you try to share with people the insights you’ve gained over time to help them through their challenges,” he says.

Abell credits role models who contributed to his success. His mother raised him and his sister as a single parent “who expected the most out of us,” he says. “She never accepted mediocrity.” In addition, Abell played football in high school and college, where his coaches served as father figures. “They kept me on the straight and narrow. I’m still in contact with them today.”

He aims to fill that role not only for members of the police force but for youth as well. Abell volunteers as a coach for the freshman football team at Mira Costa High School. “It’s not about winning and losing; it’s about the life skills we can impart to those kids.” He tells parents to judge him on whether, by the end of the season, their child has matured as evidenced by such signs as having better time management, doing chores without prompting or raising a hand in the classroom thanks to confidence gained on the team.

Abell has also taught civics classes at Mira Costa and hopes to teach life skills in Manhattan Beach and Inglewood schools now that he’s truly retired. Meanwhile, he managed to escape for two weeks in June—he’d never taken more than a week’s vacation before—on a motorcycle trip with two friends to visit his former stomping grounds in Montana. The 4,300-mile trip included stops in national parks and enjoying the scenery in South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

Abell found his purpose in law enforcement but admits he initially had no intention of serving. He hoped to go into broadcasting after graduating from Montana State University with a degree in communications and public relations. He saw a recruiting ad for the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department promising a $34,000 annual salary with benefits and decided to give it a shot.

He was soon hired and was working in the county men’s jail. Not long after, a friend from the Sheriff ’s Academy now working in the Manhattan Beach Police District encouraged Abell to join him. “I had never been to Manhattan Beach,” says Abell, who grew up in Inglewood. He liked what he saw, applied and was hired in 1991. “It’s been a great ride ever since,” he says. •

Coach Abell talks with incoming Mira Costa freshman players (from left) Barrett Ryan, Charlie Rogoff and Christian Hackley.

“Me and my friends still talk about Coach Abell. Out of all the coaching experiences we’ve had, we all remember what he taught us, the things he said. His message was: If you want something you have to go after it, never give up and never accept mediocrity. The energy and intensity he brought every day taught me so much. He taught me not only to be the best football player I can be, but the best person I can be outside the field. He was one of my favorite coaches I’ve ever had. During freshman football, I wanted to be better for him just because I had so much respect for him.”

—Jackson Fischer, 2020 graduate, Mira Costa, and corner, Princeton University