Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? Sean Merriman A one a
Speaker 1: hand effect. Boom boom, boom, out go the lights. This
Speaker 1: is Lights Out with Sean Merriman. What's up? Guys? Were
Speaker 1: back again with another lights out podcast for me Sean Merriman,
Speaker 1: And today we got UM. Somebody who I call family, right. UM.
Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of guys, even really close friends,
Speaker 1: people I've played against, people I played with UM, or
Speaker 1: some people to just watch me play over the years.
Speaker 1: But this one, I'm happy to you know, call this
Speaker 1: guy's family. UM. Someone who mentored me as a kid
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. UM, LaVar Arrington from
Speaker 1: the former Washington football team when he got drafted by
Speaker 1: by the team, and I was at Frederick Ducklan's High
Speaker 1: school and up a Marlborough, Maryland. I convinced LaVar's younger
Speaker 1: brother to come and play high school basketball with me.
Speaker 1: And that's how LaVar and I relationship started. Uh. With
Speaker 1: somebody who I've always looked up to it and and
Speaker 1: look that as a mentor and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I started off early. I give him a lot
Speaker 1: of credit because I got a chance to be around
Speaker 1: another pro and seen the lifestyle, found out how to
Speaker 1: work and replay books and watch film and just how
Speaker 1: to go about my everyday life. Uh this is at
Speaker 1: at the age of sixteen seventeen, So LaVar engine, what
Speaker 1: what's what's going on? Mann? Bro? Are you are you coolding?
Speaker 1: Are you coaching right now? Too? Right? All right? So
Speaker 1: I'm taking the year off because I have kids that
Speaker 1: where I would coach, they went I coached them last year,
Speaker 1: so they can't follow me. So I'm gonna take I'm
Speaker 1: taking the year off, which it's mad Mass freshman year,
Speaker 1: so I'm just watching him and and watching and the guys,
Speaker 1: and then when we get back to the the other
Speaker 1: kids their senior year, I'm gonna come back on the sideline. So, so,
Speaker 1: how how has that been? Because you you've always you've
Speaker 1: always kind of, you know, took guys in your wing,
Speaker 1: me being one of them, you know, as a as
Speaker 1: a kid and stuff like that. Man, But you really
Speaker 1: just kind of got into the coaching aspect as far
Speaker 1: as I knew you when I was growing up, and
Speaker 1: you kind of took me under your wing, it was
Speaker 1: more of like a mentorship. When when did that? When
Speaker 1: did the whole culture thing come around? Man I had
Speaker 1: I had mentor for so long it had morphed than
Speaker 1: to training. So now I was using training to to
Speaker 1: like be the catalyst of me being able to mentor guys.
Speaker 1: And I was pretty good at it. So once I
Speaker 1: realized that I was pretty good at teaching, it was
Speaker 1: like kind of the next step for me to prove
Speaker 1: to myself for add to my resume, was how good
Speaker 1: would I be able to take um the skills that
Speaker 1: I use and and training to coaching because training is
Speaker 1: a lot different than coaching as well, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I I actually got pulled into coaching by Antonio
Speaker 1: Pierce to Long Beach Polly, which was really cool because
Speaker 1: you go into a scenario where it's such a rich
Speaker 1: culture in tradition to to that program, and I coach linebackers.
Speaker 1: I assisted Claiborne on on as as a defense coordinator
Speaker 1: with with the defense schemes. But you know, when I
Speaker 1: was sitting in the meetings and and like just kind
Speaker 1: of getting into it as like man, like I started
Speaker 1: I started saying to myself, It's like I could call
Speaker 1: this offense or set this offensive situation up better, Like
Speaker 1: they think that if you played one side of the
Speaker 1: ball then you don't know the other side right, and
Speaker 1: and and so it's kind of funny because being good
Speaker 1: at playing defense was because I was really good at
Speaker 1: playing offense. And I just applied what I did on
Speaker 1: defense to the understanding of how I played, you know,
Speaker 1: and thought on offense, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: it kind of went from schematically, it's like, man, I'm
Speaker 1: limiting myself. I would like to go build a program.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm gonna fight to try to
Speaker 1: get a job, and and and the school I ended
Speaker 1: up going to, I got a head coaching job and
Speaker 1: there's a small private school and past dina Um got
Speaker 1: my opportunity. And when I got my opportunity, we we
Speaker 1: won six games my first year and went to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: We hosted a home playoff game, so we were good
Speaker 1: enough to host a home game. We lost, we got
Speaker 1: our heads beat in um, but it was a successful season.
Speaker 1: And then we came back my second year and we
Speaker 1: we had the same like the same exact season almost
Speaker 1: as six seven when when win season and we made
Speaker 1: it to the playoffs again. Literally, Sean, I was playing
Speaker 1: with two three lineman and like nineteen kids, how small
Speaker 1: our team was it was like not even a lot
Speaker 1: of kids. So I was like making chicken soup out
Speaker 1: of chicken, you know what. And and so this last
Speaker 1: year I had a couple of really really good, good
Speaker 1: young men that were aging and we had to abbreviate
Speaker 1: it year and we went undefeated at one h the
Speaker 1: league championships. So I've since set step down because the
Speaker 1: numbers in the participation weren't good enough, the support from
Speaker 1: the school wasn't good enough, um to build the program. So,
Speaker 1: you know, my son is going into high school and
Speaker 1: the kids that had came and followed me to Marion
Speaker 1: after to come there, they needed to go to a
Speaker 1: better a better situation. So that's where we're at currently.
Speaker 1: But coaching, it just it just kind of happened. Who
Speaker 1: So I never asked you this, but because you've been
Speaker 1: mentoring so many of these kids, and so many of
Speaker 1: a lot of these kids actually came around and became
Speaker 1: something like big you know has produced who was some
Speaker 1: of the guys because you played with some of the
Speaker 1: people who I watched growing up, like you get you
Speaker 1: played with Bruce Smith on instead um God, who else,
Speaker 1: dion Y, Daryl Green, Champ, Bailey who was one of
Speaker 1: the guys like that, because you've been told so many
Speaker 1: people like when you came in the locker room that
Speaker 1: you that kind of like grabbed you up. And I
Speaker 1: remember me walking in the locker room. It was Lt.
Speaker 1: Lorenz O'Neill um, you know at the time, roaming open
Speaker 1: that just you know, just came over to um and
Speaker 1: you know, Jamal Williams, Randall, Goffrey, Donnie Edwards. So I
Speaker 1: walked in the locker room full of guys who were
Speaker 1: in the league ten pluge years. And so who was
Speaker 1: that for you when on your team? Yeah, don't come
Speaker 1: good name. Uh. When I came into the league, probably
Speaker 1: probably prime. But I would say Marco Coleman was probably
Speaker 1: the one that had the biggest influence on me in
Speaker 1: terms of just how I handle things as as you know, bro,
Speaker 1: he was a o G by the time I had
Speaker 1: came in and he definitely his locker. They put me
Speaker 1: next to his locker. Um. He has always you know,
Speaker 1: to some gum, calm down, like to some gum that
Speaker 1: that was his thing. Like like I'd be like so
Speaker 1: tightly wound up, I'd be breathing all hard, you like,
Speaker 1: just to get a here and take this piece of
Speaker 1: gum to the gun, bro like relax uh. And he
Speaker 1: was a o g off the field too, So I
Speaker 1: learned a lot about how to handle things um off
Speaker 1: the field, A lot of a lot of things I did. Um.
Speaker 1: I learned to do it in the house. Don't don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere, Um I did you and and in so
Speaker 1: many ways with with early just how my home was,
Speaker 1: just the environment that was there from things in my
Speaker 1: house like Marco, and you know, it's half fun out
Speaker 1: your crib. Be safe, um secure and and and really
Speaker 1: position yourself where you don't have to have any regrets
Speaker 1: about you know, the times that you're having. That was
Speaker 1: one of the quickest lessons that I learned when I
Speaker 1: got to the league. But I say Sean Barber was
Speaker 1: was a pretty good He was a dope friend. I
Speaker 1: want to say he was a mentor. We were just
Speaker 1: we were like brothers and and how close we were
Speaker 1: um when when I got in I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from him, um organically. But I would say Marco Coleman
Speaker 1: was probably the one that had the biggest influence on
Speaker 1: me in terms of just how I handle things. As
Speaker 1: you know, bro, why are you smiling that Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot
Speaker 1: com and within the I Heart Radio app search f
Speaker 1: s R to listen live. Because I want to end up,
Speaker 1: because you know what, I want to ask you something
Speaker 1: about about Barbara with the card? Good? Is it cool?
Speaker 1: I know about that. You don't know about everything. So
Speaker 1: he he borrowed my He borrowed my three sixty Medina.
Speaker 1: I was out of town. He borrowed my three sixty Medina, wrefted,
Speaker 1: wrecked my car. I never knew. So you know, I
Speaker 1: was around, but I wasn't like around when it happened.
Speaker 1: But I think I might have been around Stephen Davis.
Speaker 1: So what it was something was one of the guys
Speaker 1: I was around, and I was a kid, I think
Speaker 1: I was. I was, I was young. I was like
Speaker 1: pri sixteen and seventeen at the time. And so I
Speaker 1: heard he had, uh, Barbara bar at your car. So
Speaker 1: that's true, that's one to happen. Yeah, he borrowed the car,
Speaker 1: drove it, I believed to Richmond, Virginia. But we were
Speaker 1: this tight night. We were tight enough where he could
Speaker 1: go get my keys and knew where my keys were
Speaker 1: and take my car. So he drove the car to Richmond.
Speaker 1: I think on his way back he rapped. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: kept it. It's when you brought up his name. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask that story because I was. I was
Speaker 1: young then, and man, that's crazy, that's crazy. There's no
Speaker 1: way in here. You're a lot better than me, because
Speaker 1: there's no there's no way in hell I would have.
Speaker 1: We was tight. You and listen, you were you were
Speaker 1: around me, so you know how I was like, I
Speaker 1: just you know, if you was in my circle, I
Speaker 1: loved you. We was. It is what it is, like,
Speaker 1: I just take it our face value. Now, if he
Speaker 1: was somebody different, it was somebody different, it would have
Speaker 1: been some smoke, you know, you know, big drain that
Speaker 1: might have been up in there. Lad That dude yoked
Speaker 1: up for me while I pointed out him and touched
Speaker 1: him on his chest and told him, what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: to you right now? But something? So it was like
Speaker 1: I was more happy he was. He was okay, more
Speaker 1: so than anything else, Like you all right, you know, now,
Speaker 1: get my car fixed, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: we went from there. But yeah, that's the true story, dude.
Speaker 1: I I always um, I always wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's funny you said that. But when you
Speaker 1: brought his name up by the first thing, I started
Speaker 1: thinking about what. Um let me let me ask because
Speaker 1: we you know, a couple of minute. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you something about the wholesome one bittles things because
Speaker 1: I tweeted something the other day, UM about you know,
Speaker 1: mental mental health, which I don't know about you all, man,
Speaker 1: but I you know when I retired, especially when you
Speaker 1: do it from an injury, because you it's crazy, man,
Speaker 1: how are you know kind of stories and paths and
Speaker 1: matched up in a lot of different ways because of
Speaker 1: the injuries and and and having coming off the highs
Speaker 1: of highs and being in known as the best of
Speaker 1: what you do, then get injured and not not really
Speaker 1: kind of finding your way again. For me, when I retired,
Speaker 1: that first year or two was kind of rough, and
Speaker 1: I had plenty of things lined up to do. It's
Speaker 1: just I felt like I had more and I was
Speaker 1: never able to get to do that more. And that
Speaker 1: was that was me personally. So you know that the
Speaker 1: whole depression things, they're the anxiety, the stress, and you know,
Speaker 1: just everything. But I tweeted something the other day about
Speaker 1: someone vials about um, you know, mental health is important,
Speaker 1: but so was mental toughness. So you know, to me,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a big thing. I looked and it got
Speaker 1: retweeted like thirteen thousand times or something, or like thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand times, retweeted thirty three thousand times, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of negative ass comments, And for me,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really care. You know, we we
Speaker 1: come from a different cloth where we're not sitting around
Speaker 1: worrying about what a damn with. Nobody's saying that We're
Speaker 1: gonna say what we say. Um, your opinion, and everybody
Speaker 1: got to respect that, you know. And I've come from
Speaker 1: a side of respect somebody else opinion, even if I
Speaker 1: don't believe in what they're saying. UM. But I feel
Speaker 1: like personally that if I wasn't mentally tough, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have I wouldn't have been We couldn't be doing this
Speaker 1: right because I wouldn't have been here. You know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been in a position to even continue on
Speaker 1: because you know, so many things happened to all of us.
Speaker 1: Everybody got their own different story, whether it's injury or
Speaker 1: something happened to you as a kid, or something that
Speaker 1: we all deal with. But I just simply made the
Speaker 1: statement of being mentally mental health. Obviously it's very important
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a big hot yoga I meditate
Speaker 1: and do stuff. Even now when I go and do
Speaker 1: my man boxing and stuff, it's still a form of
Speaker 1: meditation for me, period. So I believe in mental health.
Speaker 1: It's a very important thing. But also I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: let anybody use that as a crutch. And I see
Speaker 1: that nowadays, in my opinion, I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: that being used as a crutch as opposed to somebody saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just having a tough time right now.
Speaker 1: This is life. This like this happens in life. Man.
Speaker 1: What what do you What do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: I think there's a fine line that that is that
Speaker 1: exists there between the whole idea of having mental toughness
Speaker 1: versus understanding what the mental health and the value of
Speaker 1: the mental health is um and someone bows's case, I
Speaker 1: feel like the fact that she had to come out
Speaker 1: and be the one that was having the conversation about
Speaker 1: it was incorrect, right. It just tells you how far
Speaker 1: behind people are in terms of understanding how serious mental
Speaker 1: health is. It's not more so because when you think
Speaker 1: about mental toughness, mental toughness is more so you digging
Speaker 1: deep and finding a way to continue on. It would
Speaker 1: be more comparable to say, imagine if you had to
Speaker 1: play a game with a fully ruptured Achilles tendon or
Speaker 1: a fully fully ruptured a c L you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like like have the mental toughness to get
Speaker 1: up and go back out there and finish the game.
Speaker 1: That to me is the equivalent of mental health. So
Speaker 1: for her to be in a situation where she had
Speaker 1: to pull herself out, for her to have to give
Speaker 1: the explanation, it just continues to show that we're not
Speaker 1: We're still not to the place or where we need
Speaker 1: to be to understand how exactly to approach mental health.
Speaker 1: You can You can have uh, five six different people
Speaker 1: come out there if she breaks her arm or breaks
Speaker 1: her leg while she's competing, and they'll check her physically
Speaker 1: and they'll cart her off, and everybody will have closure
Speaker 1: on her not competing because you were able to visually
Speaker 1: see why she can't compete, and that's been like the
Speaker 1: age old argument with with mental health is you can't
Speaker 1: see mental health. You can see it when it's not there,
Speaker 1: when it's not present by the way people do things,
Speaker 1: but you can't see it in in general. Like think
Speaker 1: about with Junior, Like you know, you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to see that he was dealing with things emotionally and
Speaker 1: mental health wise because he was too dope of a dude,
Speaker 1: like you're too busy admuring do but he's sitting there
Speaker 1: and all of the mental health injuries that he had
Speaker 1: that probably needed like surgery, you never address it. All
Speaker 1: the injuries that you sustained during your career. You were
Speaker 1: able to get the physical aspect of your body together,
Speaker 1: but they never addressed your mental They never they never
Speaker 1: did a diagnostic uh deal or did mental rehab on you.
Speaker 1: And if somebody approached us to do it, it's so
Speaker 1: foreign to us. We look at it like I'm not crazy,
Speaker 1: I don't need mental health assistance. I'm I'm good, I
Speaker 1: feel strong, I'm getting my body back together. But now
Speaker 1: I think that things are changing in a way where
Speaker 1: the conversation has to be had that if you can
Speaker 1: spend millions of dollars on a training facility for lifting
Speaker 1: weights or a training facility for physical rehab. Why can't
Speaker 1: you put millions of dollars and and and you know
Speaker 1: commitment into the mental health rehab as well. You should
Speaker 1: be able to go in there, and you should be
Speaker 1: able to do the same type of exercises that get
Speaker 1: you physically ready to go. You should be able to
Speaker 1: go to a place that mentally gets you ready to
Speaker 1: go as well. It's like we're where we're we are
Speaker 1: patched up, we are fixed, and we are put back
Speaker 1: on the field, and the only time that the mental
Speaker 1: health issues become real issues is once we're retired. So
Speaker 1: now those mental health issues come out and it's like
Speaker 1: we were never getting them fixed. It's like compiling a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of physical injuries through the years and never
Speaker 1: addressing them. You know, there should have been support in
Speaker 1: terms of how simone vows was withdrawn, how it was
Speaker 1: handled was what made it kind of it comes down
Speaker 1: to interpretation, Like when we hear athletes say it's up
Speaker 1: to us to create an interpretation and have an opinion
Speaker 1: of it. But if a trainer would have came out
Speaker 1: and said like, look, this is what's going on. She
Speaker 1: has to deal with this data that will give you
Speaker 1: an update, and just like how they're doing sports on
Speaker 1: anything else, we'll give you an update as it unfolds.
Speaker 1: We got to do some evaluating data that will reevaluate
Speaker 1: it and then we'll get back to you. That's really
Speaker 1: how it should have been handled, honestly speaking. But the
Speaker 1: fact that we don't, we don't pay attention to it
Speaker 1: the way that we need to. It played out, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, from the jump, it played out the wrong
Speaker 1: way a far man. I appreciate you man for just
Speaker 1: stopping in real quick and then, um my god, one
Speaker 1: of one of these days we gotta we we gotta
Speaker 1: do a long hour just on just all this man,
Speaker 1: just in general. Um, because I do think I do
Speaker 1: think there's a direct correlation with a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know we we talk all the time,
Speaker 1: but maybe getting an opportunity to share some of this
Speaker 1: information with with people out here, and you know, you
Speaker 1: don't know who's listening, who's gonna help, We're gonna make
Speaker 1: a difference. Man, It's coming. The time is coming. We
Speaker 1: just gotta keep grinding. It's gonna happen. Yeah, harding bro.
Speaker 1: Love you, they appreciate it, Love you too. What all right?
Speaker 1: Thanks guys listening to another lights our podcast and me
Speaker 1: Sean Merrimon and uh, that was that was awesome and
Speaker 1: I honestly we we could have probably went another forty
Speaker 1: five minutes to an hour, um, but we had a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff to cover. H the bars. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: he's been a great mentor they on listening now, a
Speaker 1: great coach um, and his work ethic has always been undeniable.
Speaker 1: So thank you guys for listening in to another lights
Speaker 1: Out podcast. Me Sean Merimon and we'll be back again soon.