ALAN TAYLOR is a trailblazing PR/marketing pro and former journalist who founded Alan Taylor Communications (now known simply as Taylor). He spent decades cultivating relationships in sports with the likes of MUHAMMAD ALI and BILLIE JEAN KING, many of which are detailed in a new professional memoir. Now living in Boca Raton, Taylor describes his daily routine as “fairly typical” for a retiree. But his experiences as a sports business pioneer are anything but.
6:30am: I usually get up about 6:30. No alarm clock set. Body wakes up at the same time just about every day. My wife and I usually have MSNBC’s “MORNING JOE” on TV before I leave the house.
8:15am-noon: Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings, I play golf -- typically about 8:15-8:30. Beginning Nov. 1, when all the snowbirds come back to Florida, we have a pretty good group. Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I go to our fitness center at the Club at Boca Pointe at 8:00 and warm up with about a half hour on the treadmill. Then a trainer will come in and take me through a lot of things that I wouldn’t do on my own. I try to keep in shape, but it’s pretty hard down here, because everything focuses around, “Where are you going to eat tonight?”
Noon-1:00pm: After the round is over, we go to our club and have a full session of lunch, just hang out. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, after my workout, I go to FAU, where I’m taking a course on the British Empire. A friend of mine, we audit the courses. We go up to the campus, have lunch with students in the dining hall and attend a two-hour lecture.
1:00-5:00pm: Much of the rest of the day I spend helping on the marketing of the club. I write the blogs, website stuff, articles for the regional or club newspaper. I serve on the BOG of the club, so I have meetings and management responsibilities. I’m also trying to arrange speaking engagements for myself at various universities, including the Univ. of Florida and my alma mater, Miami. I’m trying to use my book as a tool to give back to the professions that have been good to me. So I’m spending time writing a PowerPoint presentation and editing video. That occupies a lot of my afternoons.
Taylor's career included stints working for both Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King, among othersALAN TAYLOR
5:00-7:00pm: My wife and I try to eat at home at least three times a week, but the social life is so active when you’re retired in a place like this. When we go out, we either go to the country club, which is convenient, or a restaurant in the area. The big social thing in Boca is whether you’re making a doctor’s appointment, or where you’re going for dinner.
7:00-10:00pm: After dinner I either relax with my wife, or we play cards, like Bridge or Canasta. Some nights we’ll hang out at the house and watch 3-4 episodes of “JACK RYAN” on Amazon Prime or “FAUDA” on Netflix. If we’re home and not at a charity event or other function, we’ll typically go to bed between 10:00 and 11:30. We like to watch STEPHEN COLBERT sometimes. Before I turn in, I’ll typically check email one more time and read Huffington Post or Politico.
2:00-4:00am: I literally wrote my book in the middle of the night. I’d wake up remembering all these stories. I’d run over to the computer, spend an hour writing it, go back to sleep. I did that for about three months. The stuff just seemed to come out more in the middle of the night when I was more relaxed, as opposed to trying to force the writing.
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