Flawless as he might look to his "Dancing With the Stars" fans, Jason Taylor has a permanent blemish. There's a tiny scar between his eyes, a 20-year-old wound incurred not on the football field, but, of all places, on the dance floor.
"Back when I was about 10 years old, I was dancing to Michael Jackson at a little party," said Taylor, 33, an All-Pro defensive end for the Miami Dolphins. "I was a kid and had no inhibitions. I tried to spin and slipped on the floor . . . and I fell and hit the speaker."
After that, he turned his attention to safer pursuits. Namely, corkscrewing quarterbacks into the turf. Taylor, the 2006 NFL defensive player of the year, has had double-digit quarterback sack totals in five of the last six seasons and, at a sleek 6 feet 6 and 240 pounds, is proof that a dominating defensive lineman doesn't need to be built like a condo in cleats.
Nowhere is his grace and coordination on better display than on ABC's television hit show, where over the last few weeks he has danced his way into America's consciousness.
The day after he and dance partner Edyta Sliwinska scored a near-perfect 27 on their mambo, Taylor's website -- www.JasonTaylor99.com -- registered more than 300,000 hits, roughly 50 times what he would get on a typical off-season day.
"Dancing With the Stars," which is in its sixth season, is among television's most popular shows. It airs Mondays and Tuesdays and finished third and fourth in last week's Nielsen ratings, behind two "American Idol" segments. Monday night, Taylor and Sliwinska received 23 out of a possible 30 points for their jive, good for fifth place among the 10 couples still in the competition.
Seemingly overnight, Taylor has an entirely new fan base -- mostly women, who know very little if anything about his six Pro Bowls, or his rise from small-school standout at the University of Akron to the NFL's leading sacker this decade and recipient of the league's Walter Payton man-of-the-year award last season.
"The funny thing is, I'm not the football player anymore, I'm the football guy that dances now," he said. "It's 'the "Dancing With the Stars" guy.' "
Emmitt Smith warned him about that. In 2006, the former Dallas Cowboys star danced away with the show's championship disco-ball trophy.
"He was the all-time leading rusher, and all the things he did in the NFL, and he'll be a Hall of Famer," Taylor said. "But he said, 'Everywhere I go now, I'm just the "Dancing With the Stars" guy.' And he's cool with that.
