Interesting article on Shawne Merriman

[Ziachild007]

I am wondering if this may be an effort by the SD media to help soften the image of Merriman. Chargerz, what is the general attitude towards him in the SD area.

 

 

 

Mr. Lights Out

 

Merriman took long, nasty road from rough childhood in Maryland to becoming top draft choice of Chargers

 

By Kevin Acee

STAFF WRITER

 

May 15, 2005

 

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. – Yes, he is nasty. For that, the Chargers made him their first pick in the NFL draft.

 

And normally he wastes little energy off the field on emotion. There is too much to do, and he has come too far.

 

 

 

NICK WASS / Associated Press

Shawne Merriman visits the lumber yard in Upper Marlboro, Md., where he worked six days a week as a high school student.

 

But for at least one moment earlier this month, nasty Shawne Merriman sat in the parking lot of an apartment complex where he lived as a boy and quickly ran a finger under one eye, swabbing the moisture brimming inside before it spilled down his cheek.

 

The moment passed.

 

Suddenly, he was smiling, an expansive, genuine grin.

 

"Wow!" he said as he watched a group of kids throwing a football around a dirt patch between squat block buildings. "This brings back memories."

 

And right away he launched into a story, one of many – spectacular and funny and sad – describing the confluence of events that has brought Merriman to this point in a life that has been anything but charmed.

 

This particular story is about the time in fourth grade when Merriman tattled on a group of sixth-graders who were breaking the rules. It seems that when the four older (and bigger) boys found out who ratted them out, they chased Merriman all the way home.

 

Merriman's mother heard the commotion and came out to mediate. Her solution: "She made me fight each one, one by one."

 

The smile widened.

 

"This is how you grew up around here," Merriman said. "You had to learn how to be a fighter. If they didn't get me that day they would chase me the next day and the next day until they got me. That's how you had to live."

 

The smile threatened to break Merriman's face.

 

"I whupped every one of those guys," he said. "I was just a nasty little man."

 

Now it's his reputation that is taking a beating.

 

Speaking by phone this past week, Merriman expressed sadness about how he was being perceived in San Diego due to his holdout from the team's offseason workouts over concerns he might be injured before signing a contract.

 

But he remained resolute.

 

"I worked so hard my whole life getting where I am now," he said. "I just want all that to be protected. I don't want to lose everything."

 

 

Living large

Merriman drove down Interstate 95 two Sundays ago, hip-hop screaming from the speakers in his new ride, a special-order silver Mercedes SUV just days off the boat.

 

Inside, there are three screens to show DVDs. The leather upholstery is black and silver. Sewn into the headrests and floor mats are light switches turned to the off position with the words "Lights Out" in elegant script above each one.

 

The exterior of the vehicle resembles a tank, all right angles, sleek but a little odd.

 

"It symbolizes me," Merriman said. "Some people get a Corvette and people say, 'You're made for that car.' You can put my face up next to a picture of this car – it just fits."

 

 

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Merriman is big into symbolism.

 

As he drove, he explained the tattoos on his arms.

 

He calls the left his "religious" arm. There are two crosses, one an elaborate picture with thorns around the cross, which is made of spikes that are piercing the heart of Christ. Inscribed on the other cross: "Forgive me Father."

 

On his right forearm is the light switch in the off position and "Lights Out" in the same script as on his upholstery. On his biceps is "Extreme pain" in English and, below it, in Japanese. On the side of his shoulder is a Superman logo surrounded by flames, which Merriman calls his "Evil Superman" tattoo.

 

Two sides of Shawne Merriman.

 

"That's what's going on," he said with satisfaction, as if he is pleased his passenger has figured out the allegorical meaning of the art. "The left side is the good side."

 

He pointed to his right arm and said: "This is the side that opens up on the field."

 

But there is yet another side to this dynamic 20-year-old, who is 6 feet 4 and pushing 270 pounds with an easy smile and easier demeanor that disappear the instant his foot touches the football field.

 

Across Merriman's colossal back, connecting his arms, is a gladiatorial scene set in a coliseum.

 

"On and off the field I'm like a gladiator," Merriman said. "On the field, laying it all out, leaving it all out there, do or die. Off the field, just being a gladiator in life. I've seen it; I've done it; I've been through it and survived it."

 

 

All grown up

A few days spent with Merriman renders laughable the idea that Marty Schottenheimer could intimidate the kid over steak and eggs.

 

The Chargers coach tried just that when he met Merriman for breakfast in San Diego before the draft. It's a ploy Schottenheimer has used on young men before, testing them, seeing if he can get them to inadvertently impart insight into their personalities.

 

At one point, Schottenheimer asked Merriman what made him think he was ready to come out of college a year early.

 

Seriously.

 

"I've been a man since I was 12," Merriman told the coach.

 

That's how old Merriman was when he got his first job, begged it off an uncle in the landscape business. Every day, nine or 10 hours a day for $5 an hour, Merriman worked in the sweltering plastic-wrap humidity that smothers the Eastern states during the summer.

 

"I've always been a guy who loves to work," Merriman said.

 

The money Merriman earned, landscaping and in a series of jobs after that, "was mainly for me." But there were occasions he had to help out with the rent or with food for him and his sister and mother.

 

Then came the summertime two-step: hauling lumber from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., then working in the gym down the road until midnight.

 

The gym job was perfect for the kid who by then was an exercise fiend, adding inches and pounds at a rate that saw him go from 5 feet 8, 165 pounds as a freshman to 6-2, 225 as a senior.

 

The other job, at a lumber yard, "was the worst."

 

At 17, Merriman wasn't old enough to operate the machinery every one else used to move the lumber. So he would lug two-by-fours and four-by-

 

fours and six-by-sixes several hundred feet to the customer pick-up area. He left work every afternoon – six days a week – with splinters in his shoulder.

 

"Oh man, it was terrible," he said. "But it got me fit for the season."

 

He got fit for more than that. It is the job he looks back on with the most abhorrence and the most appreciation.

 

"It molded me," he said. "It made me the guy who knows how to work and knows the true value of a dollar.

 

"I didn't want to work in a restaurant. That job wasn't me. I felt I was worth more than that. I just had to work to get it."

 

 

No heat, no food

There were plenty of winter days without a proper coat and nights without heat. As Merriman was describing this recently, he was asked: "Is there anything worse than being cold?"

 

Not a second passed.

 

"Yeah, hungry," he answered.

 

Merriman was both. A lot. And more.

 

The first time his apartment burned down – yes, the first time – it was because a trio of thugs threw a Molotov cocktail through a window trying to intimidate his baby-sitter, who knew too much about a murder.

 

Merriman was 11.

 

He still recalls the smoke in his eyes and nostrils.

 

Not six years later, half the family's house burned in a fire started by candles lit for warmth.

 

He lost everything and ended up living with one of his coaches the rest of his junior year.

 

Merriman was not home when the fire started. He had gone to a friend's house after getting home and finding there was no electricity or heat, a common occurrence that he discussed with his friend in only vague terms.

 

"I never spoke openly about it," he said. "I always felt that was a sign of weakness. I didn't want anybody to pity me for that reason."

 

He committed to the University of Maryland without a coach ever coming to his house. He met with college recruiters only at Frederick Douglass High.

 

"I didn't want (coaches) to see how I was living," Merriman said. "Where I come from and how I act are completely different. I didn't want anyone to make judgments on me."

 

Perhaps this is why he won't make judgments of others. Perhaps it is why those who know him best describe him as loyal.

 

Merriman and his sister, Sada, lived with their grandmother for a time when they were very young. Arnethia Buchanon always worked two jobs, at least partly to help feed and clothe Shawne and Sada.

 

Other times it was the generosity of coaches or a church that saw Shawne and Sada through a week or a season.

 

Details about Merriman's mom, Buchanon's daughter, are vague. Merriman declined to have her be interviewed. He and other family members said she was ill.

 

"It was real hard," Merriman said of his relationship with his mom. "It's hard to be a child when you're taken out of the childhood mentality, when you're forced to help kick in.

 

"She dealt with things the best she could. I think a lot of people in her situation would have completely cracked. Maybe her best wasn't always good enough, but it was the best she could do."

 

As for his father, Merriman spoke to him four months ago. It was their first conversation in more than a decade.

 

"You find out a lot about yourself," said Merriman, who just wanted some questions answered.

 

Was he athletic? Did he get angry? Did he have an alcohol problem?

 

That's it. He doesn't plan to speak with the man again.

 

"I got all I needed from him," Merriman said.

 

He pauses and adds: "I'm not into bashing him. I'm sure he's aware he made a mistake. If I was him I'd be really kicking myself right now. All he had to do was be around, not all the time, just be there when I needed him."

 

 

Everyday life

Merriman is telling the story of someone getting shot in front of him and his sister and mom, bullets whizzing by their heads.

 

Where did it happen? He points to a spot just 20 feet in front of the Mercedes.

 

"Shooting happened all the time," he said. "Lots of times, we had to sleep in the closet."

 

Merriman pointed to the corner unit of one building. "I used to stay right over there," he said.

 

Stayed. Not lived.

 

"I stay there," Merriman explained. "That's something where you don't really want to live there . . . Living means long-term."

 

J.C. Pinkney, the assistant coach with whom Merriman lived his junior year, recalled many conversations in which Merriman expressed he was "tired of his situation."

 

Said Pinkney: "I knew sometimes he was on the brink of giving up. He would say, 'Every time I do something positive, I end up taking four or five steps backward.' "

 

Pinkney said he often told Merriman: "Just make it through. You've got to see the big picture. If you make it through, you'll have the world . . . It's not your fault. You have no control. What you do control is the decisions you make. You have to deal with (what) you're dealing with now to get where you want to go. The only thing you can do now is survive. No one goes through what you're going through and doesn't get something out of it."

 

He was silent for a moment before adding: "The difference with Shawne is he chose to listen."

 

Despite the struggles, Merriman indignantly contradicts the suggestion his family was poor.

 

"I wasn't poor. We were struggling," he said. "I've seen poor. That's living on the street. Poor is not having the means. I had a means to get something. It just wasn't immediate. I had to go through a lot of stuff to get it."

 

Still, Merriman knows it is amazing he survived, let alone thrived.

 

"Instead of turning that into a negative and going and getting in trouble with the law, I turned it into playing football, lifting weights and working out," he said. "That's what I turned my frustration and anger and everything else to."

 

 

Giving back

The first thing Merriman said to the junior varsity football coach his freshman year at Frederick Douglass High was, "Coach, all I want to do is hit people."

 

Pinkney smiled at the memory. Now the school's varsity coach, he remains a Merriman confidante, and his program will benefit from some of the riches its former star is about to accumulate.

 

Merriman has pledged to replace Mr. Yellow and Mr. Blue, the tackling dummies he spent three years abusing, as he wasn't allowed to participate in contact drills with the rest of the team.

 

Merriman's first year on varsity, his sophomore season, coaches started keeping him out of contact drills because he was always going so hard, throwing himself around – and at less than 175 pounds at that point.

 

"He would get little injuries and wouldn't say anything to you," Pinkney said.

 

By the next year, Pinkney said, "We were keeping him out of contact drills to protect the rest of our kids."

 

So while everyone else hit each other, Merriman would be off to the side giving 50 shots apiece to Messrs. Yellow and Blue.

 

"You never had to watch him," Pinkney said. "He'd just attack those things. You'd just hear it – 'Ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling' over and over."

 

While teammates were spared the Merriman violence, opponents had to find a way to survive his hits.

 

It wasn't easy.

 

Surrattsville coach Tom Green recalled one game in which his running back caught a screen pass and Merriman ran from the other side of the field to make the hit.

 

"He knocked him to the track – from the sideline to the track," Green said. "None of the kids wanted to run the ball after that. I had to force kids to run the ball."

 

Game plans were configured around Merriman.

 

"He was so exceptional you couldn't run the ball to him," Green said. "But you couldn't run away from him, because then he was getting blindside shots on kids. What do you do? Trying to throw the ball, we literally got to the point we had to throw deep every play so he wouldn't hurt our kids."

 

It didn't work out so well for some teams.

 

This is where "Lights Out" was born: In his sophomore year, Merriman knocked four kids out of a game against Fort Meade.

 

"They got up," he said. "But they didn't return."

 

The first kid, a fullback, blacked out and woke up to find out he had a dislocated shoulder. The second was a lineman who maybe outweighed Merriman by 70 pounds. Then the Fort Meade quarterback got it.

 

"He was scrambling," Merriman said. "Oooh. It was a nasty, nasty sight."

 

That was in the first half.

 

A running back felt the pain in the second half.

 

By the next season, folks had begun calling Merriman "Pepco" after a local utility company. "I wasn't sure how long that was going to last," Merriman said. "I just changed it to 'Lights Out.' I always thought of myself as an entertainer. People come to see what you do. If you don't love that part of the game – hitting people – you don't love football."

 

 

Letting it out

It is almost too easy, connecting the dots from Merriman's childhood to the way he plays football.

 

It is his release – the 122 tackles in one 10-game season at Douglass, the 22 sacks in three seasons at Maryland, every single play a refuge from the hunger and cold and frustration.

 

"That's the only reason I really started playing," Merriman said. "When I first went out there, I was like I don't know how to do too much, I don't know much about football, but I know how to hit you.

 

"That's what I did with my aggression. I used that instead of getting into trouble. That's my anger and my nasty attitude on the field. That's the only way I know how to play. I just play the game with a mean streak."

 

Of course he does.

 

"It's sad to say, some parts of my childhood were taken away," Merriman said in an an oddly matter-of-fact way. Actually, many of his recollections are delivered with a sense of detachment. It does not seem he is unaffected, just not overwhelmed.

 

"It's been a long time," he explained of his lack of sentiment. "It was really difficult to talk about it awhile ago. I didn't want to talk about it – what I've been through, what I've seen."

 

But he does not deny its significance.

 

"It's not a bad thing, because I was just so focused on what I was doing," he said. "It helped me play football. You're out there in the fourth quarter, tired, banged up. Are you going to quit? I've never quit in life. I'm not going to quit now."

[Big Score 1]

Sad to say, that here in America, the RICHEST and most POWERFUL Nation in the world, conditions as described above, not only exist, but are quite common.

 

Good to see that Merriman was able to get himself out of that mess.

Edited May 15, 2005 by Big Score 1

[Rovers]

That is quite a piece of PR, that is. I'm sure it will be referenced in the future, on several occassions. Um, since he hasn't signed yet, how did he get that car that is "him"?

[Riffraff]

!!! Personal opinion alert !!!!

 

Bummer, the kid has low self-esteem.

 

He needs constant visual reminders on his body and around him as to who he thinks he should be... and what he's supposed to believe in.

 

Guess the hard lifestyle (that probably 60-70% of the NFL players come from too) stunted his emotional and intellectual growth a bit.

 

Still trying to figure out who he is..

Immature. But he's young, gotta expect that.

 

I'll be expecting to see his name in the newspapers and for all the wrong reasons. He's bit into his childhood reputation too deeply.

 

He better not get injured since football is his "out" for life's pressures. Makes sense that he won't report to training camp.

 

He'll make a good "where are they now" episode when he's 40 years old.

[Big Score 1]

Um, since he hasn't signed yet, how did he get that car that is "him"? 

 

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The exact same way over the years, that all these kids who've been drafted high, have been doing it.

 

Their agent knows approximately how much they'll be able to sign draft pick X for and make personal loans to their client.

 

Where ya been the last coupla' decades Rover?

[Rovers]

I know that, Big, it just played into the whole "Im a man since I was 12" thing, and then saying that a car is "him". I think it's a safe bet he hasn't set up a boy's club in his old nieghborhood, but he does have a car that might have cost 100 grand. Scuse me for my skeptisism.

[Chargerz]

The attitude in SD right now is that he'll be a great addition to the Charger "D" but that he made a mistake dropping the agent he had at the draft and then signing on with a Poston.

 

A.J. has said in interviews that the Postons have already set an adversarial tone to upcoming contract negotiations.

 

I'd be surprised if we see him in a Bolt uniform before the beginning of the regular season.

[Rovers]

Well, at least he's only a man, not a soldier!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:doah: or is he a car? I'm confused.

Edited May 15, 2005 by Rovers

[Chargerz]

Well, at least he's only a man, not a soldier! 

:doah:  or is he a car? I'm confused.

 

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[Rovers]

S'mor stuff on merri-man, from PFT....

 

CHARGERS DIDN'T GET MEMO ON MERRIMAN?

 

Prior to the 2005 NFL draft, we heard that Maryland defensive end/linebacker Shawne Merriman was dropping on many draft boards.

On April 17, we reported that some thought Merriman would fall completely out of the first round.

 

On April 23, he didn't.

 

When the Cowboys passed on Merriman with the eleventh overall pick, we thought to ourselves, "It's happening." And Merriman likely thought the same, since as he claimed after the draft that the Cowboys had promised to take him with the first of their two first-round picks.

 

Then came the Chargers, who pounced on Merriman with the No. 12 selection.

 

After the draft, we began to pick up more information regarding the basis for teams' concerns. Without getting into many of the details (for now), the background information gathered by at least one franchise raised significant questions regarding Merriman's character.

 

We need to be clear here. We're not reporting that Merriman actually has any character issues. We're reporting that multiple league insiders who screen college talent for a living believed that there were sufficient questions to justify avoiding Merriman, based on the significant money and time invested into the pre-draft screening process.

 

In fact, we've heard that some teams in the lower reaches of round one were concerned that they might face a tough decision on what would have appeared to be a significant potential value pick.

 

Armed with the information that we received from multiple league insiders, we embarked on a "real" journalism exercise. We placed a call to University of Maryland Associate Media Relations Director Greg Creese, and we aksed him some pointed questions about Merriman.

 

We were interested in talking to someone/anyone from Maryland because the information we'd obtained from league sources suggested that the Maryland football program had covered up some of the issues about which NFL teams were concerned. Creese denied our request to interview coach Ralph Friedgen, and Creese told us that Merriman "never did anything that prohibited him from playing in a game."

 

Basically, the impression we got from Creese was that it was all a non-issue.

 

Then, within three hours after talking to Creese, we received an e-mail from K.J. Hughes, Merriman's "business manager," and Hughes asked that we give him a call. So we contacted Hughes on Friday afternoon, and he told us that he's the person to talk to if we have questions regarding Shawne.

 

But how did Hughes know that we had questions about Merriman? Hughes didn't admit that he'd been given a head's up by Creese or anyone else at Maryland -- and Hughes didn't deny it, either. The reasonable inference, from our perspective, is that our call to Creese struck a nerve, prompting him to call Hughes quickly.

 

So we aksed Hughes point blank about a rumored altercation at Maryland between Merriman and running back Sammy Maldonado. Hughes admitted that there had been a fight between the two players. Hughes denied rumors that Merriman had attacked Maldonado while Maldonado was sleeping.

 

Hughes also denied that there had been other altercations involving Merriman at Maryland, challenging us to produce police reports or other documents reflecting that such things had transpired. But that's part of the issue, we 'splained to Hughes. The information we've obtained suggested that all of this was swept under the rug by the Terrapin program.

 

Hughes further denied that Merriman had been booted off of campus due to his proclivity for fisticuffs.

 

During the conversation, Hughes repeated challenged our motives for investigating this matter. Hughes didn't seem to understand that, given Merriman's draft position, his termination of agent Gary Wichard in favor of the notorious Poston brothers, and the controversial decision not to attend the team's offseason workouts because of concerns regarding the injury protection language, Merriman is a high-profile guy whose background is of interest to many around the league.

 

The end result, in our opinion, was that Hughes came off as being way too defensive of the Terp whom many believe is a turd. And we're convinced based on our communications with league sources that if the Chargers had known what other teams knew, they wouldn't have written Merriman's name on the card at No. 12.

 

And he very well might have stayed on the board deep into the afternoon of the first day of the draft.

 

[Chargerz]

The new article above, while interesting, doesn't really give any new important information. Merriman already had the reputation as being "nasty". That's why the Bolts drafted him. This reporter sounds like he's miffed that the people he contacted were questioning his motivation. I might have done the same thing under the circumstances.

[Big Score 1]

Yeah, whenever I read something that says "in our opinion", "we're convinvced", "Without getting into many of the details" (change the word many into any ) and without one single coroberrating quote, I tend to take a report like that, with a rather large grain of salt.

 

Edited to say:

PFT has had some scoops before, so there may be some merit to the story. We'll just have to wait and see.

Edited May 16, 2005 by Big Score 1

[Trots]

Rovers seems to have a hard-on for Merriman for some reason.

[Rovers]

Rovers seems to have a hard-on for Merriman for some reason.

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Actually not at all, Trots. I just post what I come across. Big Score is right, PFT often scoops everyone else, but are wrong sometimes because of it. To thier credit, they never forget to make corrections, and apologies when appropriate. They do have some NFL contacts, and did report the reason Dallas didnt draft Merriman was over 'character" issues. then, Merriman went out and bashed the Cowboys for not taking him, when they had told him they would. Now, he doesnt attend mini camp. I see a pattern here. he makes himself a target..... like a certain WR I've read about. just the facts, Ma'am.

[Wolv]

And Dallas got slammed by many so-called draft experts for taking Ware over him.....

 

Edited May 18, 2005 by Wolv

[Chargerz]

The saga continues!

[Rovers]

Actually, I think this was a nice gesture on Merriman's part. I also think it's something of a pr move, but a pretty good one. The Bolts really should change the injury compensation for Merriman.... that would get him into camp, at least based on what the Postons have said.

[Big Score 1]

Didn't LT hold out his rookie year for the exact same reason?

[lobsterclaw]

:violin: :bawling: :bawling: The Cowboys didn't pick me.