Running back Fred Taylor, who played 11 seasons for the Jacksonville Jaguars and two years with the New England Patriots, is retiring today. From The Boston Globe:

Today, Fred Taylor will sign a ceremonial one-day contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team which drafted him eighth overall in 1998, and then he will announce his retirement from the NFL after 13 seasons and 11,695 yards, which is 15th most all-time.

I feel a special connection to Fred Taylor. Not just because he played for the Jaguars when I worked in Jacksonville, or because he also left Jacksonville to come to Boston. But because I met the man, and he was really humble and earnest.

Four years ago, Taylor joined an elite group of players who’ve rushed at least 10,000 yards. At the time, he was one of only two active players in that list of 20 players.

Not too shabby, Fred.

As that milestone was coming, the staff at The Florida Times-Union began thinking of how to cover it. AME for Visuals Denise M. Reagan and I talked with Sports Editor Chet Fussman and assistant sports editor Justin Hathaway about potential graphics. The more we talked, the more ideas we had.

I had remembered a Columbia Missourian graphic that converted Brad Smith’s stats into distance across Columbia. I liked that because I can find sports statistics kind of abstract. I wanted to put it in perspective for casual fans such as myself. We could have simply converted it to miles, but I thought showing it to readers in the context of their city had greater impact. I made it lighter and more whimsical to indicate this wasn’t a traditional map.

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Meanwhile, we knew we wanted to do something awesome for when he finally reached 10,000 yards. Whenever that fateful game happened, we wanted a breakdown of his career ready. In the preseason, we pulled statistics and started organizing our pieces. We decided I would do a full-page, season-by-season, game-by-game chart of every yard he’d rushed in his career, color-coding the games in which he rushed 100 yards or more.

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After it ran in the paper, we printed a version we could frame and give to Taylor. We went to the locker room and presented it to him. Charles Apple did a Q&A on that.

He was not what I expected a pro athlete to be. There was no cocky bravado or sense of entitlement. He was extremely gentle and humbled by his accomplishment. Other reporters have said he’s extremely friendly and down to earth.

Fred Taylor, to me, epitomizes the best of Jacksonville. He’s not the star of the team or the flashiest player, but he worked hard and did his best, despite injuries and age. He stuck with it, and when it came time to retire, he decided to do it with class.

The symbolism of signing a one-day contract with the Jaguars means a lot to fans. In the four and a half years I lived in Jacksonville, there were often fears that the team would move to another market, presumably Los Angeles. Taylor’s return to the team lets them know they are important and not forgotten, which goes a long way in Jacksonville.

To read Times-Union reporter Tania Ganguli’s piece on Fred Taylor’s retirement, go here.