Meet Taylor Beam

Taylor Beam is a senior at Kenwood High School where he is a member of the Sports Science Academy magnet program and plays three varsity sports. Beam was a four-year varsity starter and two-year captain for the Bluebirds soccer team and has been selected to attend several conferences and similar events based on his academic achievements and leadership skills.

Holding a 3.7 GPA and being part of National Honors Society, Taylor manages to balance AP classes with a job, family, friends, sports and an athletic training internship at Parkville High School. Recently, he was accepted to all six of the colleges he applied to; including McDaniel College, Towson Universit and Mount St. Mary’s. He plans to attend McDaniel  next fall, where he hopes to play soccer.

Patch talked with Taylor about his high school experience, sports and the countless hours he spends doing community service.

Q: How are you motivated to participate in so many different activities?

A: “If it’s not my mom, it’s self-motivation. We’ll go with my mom for being an excellent influence. I see all the things that she does for the community and other people and I kind of want to do the same things she does and be the same type of person she is.”

Q: You do a lot of community service work, especially through school with Sports Science and NHS. What kind of specific community service or charity work have you done?

“Every other summer, I will go with my youth group to do mission work. I’ve been to Canada and Manassas, Virginia to do mission work. I also help coach 3-year-olds in soccer for Overlea Recreational Council, and I’ve done things like the Polar Bear Plunge, Susan G. Komen Walk, the FALS Play Day and other kinds of events like that through school.”

Q. What did it mean to you to get accepted by all of the schools you applied to?

“I’m proud of myself. Everybody told me, ‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be fine,’ but in the back of my mind, I definitely thought maybe two or three of them would deny me. To get into all of them is something I’m really proud of and happy about.”

Q. What are you hoping to do as a career after college?

“I definitely want to get my bachelor's in athletic training or exercise science and get my master's in physical therapy, so that I can be an athletic trainer and physical therapist.  I’d like be out on the field with the athletes and help them with their injuries so they can get back out there and play.”

Q. Do you have any advice or tips for younger kids who aren’t in high school yet to get the most out of their high school experience?

“If I had to say one thing, it’s definitely do all you can to make yourself look good. If you want to go to college, do everything possible to make yourself look good in high school so that you can get the opportunity to go to college and really enjoy that experience.”