year's winner, Cornell's Meredith Gourdine. At the NCAA Championships in mid-June he was up against Brown, who had become the world's best jumper. In the last round Taylor jumped 25 ft in (7.77 m) to take the lead, but Brown responded with a leap of 25 ft in (7.90 m) and won. Taylor placed second, as his father had done in 1925; his new personal best was good enough to also place him second on the annual world list. At the national championships Taylor only placed sixth with a jump of 23 ft 8 in (7.21 m), but he was still considered a favorite to quality for the American team for that summer's Olympic Games in Helsinki. In a prediction poll of coaches ahead of the Olympic Trials he ranked second to Brown, ahead of Gourdine and Jerome Biffle; he was the only jumper other than Brown that any coach predicted to win. The Olympic Trials were held in Los Angeles in late June, with the top three qualifying for the Olympic team. The Trials long jump did not go according to the predictions. After five rounds Biffle was in the lead with 25 ft 2 in (7.67 m), followed by Gourdine; Taylor was in third place with 24 ft in (7.60 m) and the favorite, Brown, was set to not qualify. As at the NCAA meet, however, Brown came through in the last round, overtaking Taylor by two inches and pushing him out of the team. Biffle and Gourdine went on to go one-two at the Olympics, while Brown failed to record a valid mark. Track & Field News ranked Taylor No. 4 in the world in its 1952 rankings, behind Brown, Biffle and Gourdine but ahead of all non-American jumpers. In 1953 Taylor's best jump was 25 ft in (7.63 m), his winning mark at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. He repeated as IC4A champion, and Track & Field News again ranked him fourth in the world. Business career After graduating from Princeton in 1953 Taylor served in the U.S. Army for two years as a lieutenant. He married Barbara Olin, daughter of Olin Corporation executive Spencer T. Olin, in June 1954. Taylor's career with his father-in-law's company started in 1955. He went through a number of managerial roles, eventually rising to be general manager of the Olin-owned Winchester recreation products group and a corporate vice president. Taylor