If you have ever wondered what TayCo actually means, you are not alone. It does not stand for a technology or a medical term. It stands for three people who matter most to the man who built it.

TAY. CO. Two syllables that hold the names of TayCo Brace inventor Mike Bean's daughters, Taylor and Courtney, and a nod to his wife Colleen. Every brace that leaves the warehouse carries that family forward. But the story of how it got there starts on a football field, in the middle of a game, with a coach yelling.

A Problem Mike Bean Could Not Stop Thinking About

Mike Bean has worked as an athletic trainer for Notre Dame since 1990. Over those years, one injury kept repeating itself across all sports: ankle sprains.

He knew there had to be a better way. Something that could wrap the ankle from the outside, fit over a cleat, go on in seconds, and hold like it's meant it. Nothing on the market did all of those things at once. So Bean started building one himself.

Built for a 300-pound lineman. Ready for Everyone Else.

From the start, the TayCo AthleticX Brace was engineered to handle serious load. It had to be stable enough for a 300-pound offensive lineman cutting on a sprained ankle, and light enough that he would not notice it on the field. That combination turned out to be exactly what patients outside of football needed too.

Today, TayCo Brace braces are used by over 1,500 physicians, and athletic trainers from NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, PLL, and NLL teams. It is also worn by stroke survivors who are walking again for the first time, by people recovering from ankle fusions and Achilles repairs, by hikers and pickleball players and nurses on 12-hour shifts. The population was never just athletes. It was anyone whose ankle had ever let them down.

Why the Name Still Matters

Taylor. Courtney. Colleen. Three people who have nothing to do with orthopedics, and everything to do with why this brace exists. Mike Bean was not trying to build a business. He was trying to solve a problem that frustrated him every single season. The name he gave it just happened to be the most important thing in his life.

That is the kind of origin story that does not come from a boardroom. It comes from someone who cared enough about his work to spend years building something better, and who named it after the people who made that work worth doing.

Ready to try the brace built on the Notre Dame sideline?

Whether you are recovering from surgery, managing a chronic condition, or just trying to get back to the things you love, TayCo Brace was built for exactly that.