Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? Sean Merriman A one hand effect.
Speaker 1: Boom boom boom, out go the light. This is Lights
Speaker 1: Out with Sean Merriman. What's up, guys, We're back again
Speaker 1: with another Lights Out podcast with me Sean Merriman. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is cool, really really cool for me actually
Speaker 1: because it's one of the youngest, brightest stars. Men that
Speaker 1: feel um with a hell of a nickname. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna sucker for nicknames, um, but this one's
Speaker 1: pretty cool maniat Darius Lenard. Uh, just a tremendous talent.
Speaker 1: This dude can get after it, man, and he's had
Speaker 1: a lot of success early on. But more importantly, he's
Speaker 1: his personality is is infectious and we talk about it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into it and how he motivates other
Speaker 1: people and just people want to be around him. I'm
Speaker 1: also going to hit him with some Philip Rivers questions too,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta do that. Uh. So here we go,
Speaker 1: Darius Lenard, what's up? Man? Are you what? Bro? What's
Speaker 1: going on? No? I'm chilling man. So I seen you
Speaker 1: was No, No, you was in uh South Carolina at first.
Speaker 1: Right now you're in Tampa. Yeah, man, I trained the
Speaker 1: Tampa for the all season. Were you training that um
Speaker 1: at your Murphy your Murphy performance down here in Tampa,
Speaker 1: like in the Windshore area? How far is that from?
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that? How farther from like the im
Speaker 1: G capdel the IROG Academies in Sarasota right now, it's
Speaker 1: just a little bit out Yeah, that's a little bit
Speaker 1: out there. But you're from You're from Southwood, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: We've yeah, South Carolina. So you know it's funny. Oh my,
Speaker 1: I got a lot of family down there in Charleston.
Speaker 1: So if you see some Merriman's out there, I'm not
Speaker 1: a ten. That's all family. That's what's up, man. So
Speaker 1: what's what's going on? Man? How you how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: You know, after after the season, did you have h
Speaker 1: you have anything done? Show? Shoulder's knees. Everything came out good.
Speaker 1: Everything came out good, Thank god. Man. So I'll just
Speaker 1: just and chilling, trying to realize and get the body
Speaker 1: right before I started again. When uh you know, so,
Speaker 1: so I just seen probably I think no, wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't this morning. It was last night that you were
Speaker 1: talking about Cam. So because the reas. I brought that
Speaker 1: up because the whole surgery deal. And I try to
Speaker 1: explain to people that, um, when you have a surgery,
Speaker 1: it takes a minute to come back from. Like I
Speaker 1: don't care what you have. You got a knee, a shoulder,
Speaker 1: like what when? And I had for my case, I
Speaker 1: had achilles. So that took a whole twelve fourteen month
Speaker 1: before I even was back to normal. So what do
Speaker 1: you what do you mean by that? You think Cam
Speaker 1: on ball lot this year? Oh? Man, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: just you know, I see Cam. You know, he's better.
Speaker 1: He's the balls and he came to to the league. Man,
Speaker 1: all the hate that he gets, and you know he's
Speaker 1: out playing a lot of quarterbacks that get get a
Speaker 1: lot of praises. And you know it's crazy that you know,
Speaker 1: they said he had a down year last year. But
Speaker 1: that was the reason why Tom Brady wanted to lead
Speaker 1: the Patriots. Now you look at the Patriots offense. Now,
Speaker 1: they didn't have too many weapons that Camp could throw too.
Speaker 1: CAMRA's running the ball morning, he was throwing the ball.
Speaker 1: And now that you know, you see pregnancy yesterday getting
Speaker 1: all these weapons. Man, So I'm you know, I know
Speaker 1: what cam capable. You know, I've seen it. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean I grew up you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, so you know the Panthers right there.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I've seen him on TV all the time,
Speaker 1: and he's a monster. Man. I just had I just
Speaker 1: got mad respect for him. And he's back against the
Speaker 1: wall right now. And you know when people back against
Speaker 1: the wall, they gotta come out swinging. And I just
Speaker 1: I mean, I see the way he works, and I
Speaker 1: just know you got confidence in him. That's that's dope. Man.
Speaker 1: And speaking of quarterbacks, you played with my boy man Phil,
Speaker 1: uncle Phil Phil. So you know, people people always asked
Speaker 1: asked me about playing with Philip right, and you know
Speaker 1: I played with him from all those years. But you
Speaker 1: got a chance to play with him, and I say, man,
Speaker 1: this is one of the best dudes to be around,
Speaker 1: Like you just want to be a Runners dude. He's
Speaker 1: gonna fight, he's gonna talk back to you. And even
Speaker 1: on the defense side of the ball, that just that
Speaker 1: always gave energy. And I'm like, you know, we're bawling out.
Speaker 1: We had all those winning years. You look on the
Speaker 1: offenside of the ball, man, and Philip over there yapping
Speaker 1: with you. He's over there and the dogs fight with you.
Speaker 1: What was it like, man when he came in the
Speaker 1: locker room, And how was that experience? Man? For one,
Speaker 1: you know, he's just that ultimate competitive you know, no
Speaker 1: matter what we did for his cornhole boards or you know,
Speaker 1: just in pregnant, just you know, just competing and shooting basketball,
Speaker 1: everything he did he wanted to win. So when he
Speaker 1: came out to the field, I mean that was easy
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna trash talking here, trash talking. So I
Speaker 1: know that if he's talking trash, I gotta talk trash
Speaker 1: and we gotta step up defensively to stop him. So
Speaker 1: I mean we we kind of work hand in hand.
Speaker 1: And then you know he's like he's smartness, Like he's
Speaker 1: so smart man, just like trying to learn the game
Speaker 1: from you know, and you know, for a young linebacker
Speaker 1: like me his seventeam season, you know, just trying to
Speaker 1: you know, ask him a lot of questions, see what's up.
Speaker 1: And you know, not too many quarterbacks are willing to
Speaker 1: sit down, you know, talk to a deep as a
Speaker 1: guy to teach them really the game. You know, on
Speaker 1: the field, that guy like Man with any question. You
Speaker 1: got a guy cute. You know, if we out there
Speaker 1: on the field, we're playing, I mean we're playing in
Speaker 1: the game. Man, we out there, if somebody comes to
Speaker 1: the sideline, you know he's trained them right there on
Speaker 1: the sideline. Man. And it's it's crazy because not a
Speaker 1: lot of quarterbacks going to sit there and have the
Speaker 1: defense back as much as um Philip did. And that's
Speaker 1: that's what makes you want to go out and you
Speaker 1: know you want to go out and play. You want
Speaker 1: to go out and sid you gotta get you got
Speaker 1: the Baltimore because if you get in the ball, you
Speaker 1: know he's gonna find a way to score. And you
Speaker 1: know you just just love being his teammate and just
Speaker 1: love him as a person as well. You got any
Speaker 1: cool stories because me like Phil notice everything. I don't
Speaker 1: know if if this happened with you guys, but we
Speaker 1: just have freestyle Fridays um in the locker room. And
Speaker 1: so Phil like he could sit he could sit down
Speaker 1: with anybody, right. He'll come over there the offensive lineman,
Speaker 1: he'll come over the d line, he'll come over the
Speaker 1: dbs like he's around everybody. But one thing that the
Speaker 1: Phil did was he could pick up on anything. So
Speaker 1: we'll have a freestyle Fridays, whatever the latest uh rap
Speaker 1: song or whatever that was hot on the radio at
Speaker 1: the time. Feel it would kind of pick it up.
Speaker 1: And so I remember a time we were sitting there
Speaker 1: in the meeting room and we were just kind of
Speaker 1: watching film and we hear somebody coming down the hallway rapping.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, it was Phil Philip Rivers. He did
Speaker 1: the same thing with us, because you know, he did
Speaker 1: it all the time. And you know the song, h
Speaker 1: I put a new budge that's all here, Like he
Speaker 1: walked down the hall and thinking that the whole time.
Speaker 1: You like, I can't get it out of my my head. See,
Speaker 1: I'm glad somebody else see it, because nobody believe me.
Speaker 1: Nobody believe me when I told him, I said, feels
Speaker 1: like that man likes It's just something about him always
Speaker 1: make you want to be around. Like you said before,
Speaker 1: I want to play for him. And so I'm glad.
Speaker 1: You know, he came there four years. You know, everybody
Speaker 1: got a chance of experience that. But no, now y'all
Speaker 1: got a new a new quarterback in there, you know,
Speaker 1: And what was what was the reception when when he
Speaker 1: got there when it was when it was kind of
Speaker 1: put out there in the media. Uh, you're talking as
Speaker 1: in the Carson of Phillips. That's in Carson. Sorry, Carson man.
Speaker 1: You know we're where the coach, coach frant you know,
Speaker 1: he called he called me the day before or something
Speaker 1: like that, and you know, he said, that's what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do. And you know, I believe in everything the
Speaker 1: front office doing. You know, if they're gonna bring the guys,
Speaker 1: and I know they're gonna bring in the right guys
Speaker 1: in the locker room. And I played against Carson in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight team a Rikie season and that
Speaker 1: was his first game back from his A C l
Speaker 1: Andree and he came in and he played. He played well.
Speaker 1: And you know he's been every ever since I saw him.
Speaker 1: You know, he's been playing great. And then you see him,
Speaker 1: um that Super Bowl run. I mean, he was an
Speaker 1: m VP candidate before he before he towards me in
Speaker 1: Now he's coming back home with Frank Wright, you know,
Speaker 1: his offensive minding coordinator. So I'm definitely looking forward to
Speaker 1: you know, everybody just working on in you know everybody.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, you need that new beginning and hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, when he comes in, you know we're gonna
Speaker 1: I mean, nothing gonna be easy. We gotta come in,
Speaker 1: we gotta work hard, and you know, hopefully you know
Speaker 1: he lead his offensive to the right direction, that's um,
Speaker 1: to the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. Did you
Speaker 1: did you get a chance to write to him yet?
Speaker 1: Did you you guys get a chance to speak on
Speaker 1: the phone or meet up yet or anything yet? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, once, I mean once everything got a fistal.
Speaker 1: You know I shot him at tenism, but you know,
Speaker 1: I just welcome then tell him that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you ever do anything, you know, I'm here and just
Speaker 1: looking forward to you know the process. You know what
Speaker 1: it's dope, man is um So when you told me that, uh,
Speaker 1: I think we met right. Uh tell me that tell
Speaker 1: me that story, man, because I need to hear it.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of crazy to me. Well, when I
Speaker 1: when I grew up, you know, my brother got drafted
Speaker 1: in a No. Seven to sen Diego, So you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up South Merriman fan, So you know I
Speaker 1: wanted to you know, I wanted to meet you. I
Speaker 1: remember y'all played against Jacksonville and Jacksonville maybe oh seven
Speaker 1: or maybe oh eight, and you know, just coming out
Speaker 1: of locker room and after the game, you know, you
Speaker 1: came out to the family station and like you walked
Speaker 1: right up to me, gave me an autograph. You know,
Speaker 1: it was every since then. It was like damn you know,
Speaker 1: big Sean Merriman fan. It was just it was just
Speaker 1: pretty dope. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
Speaker 1: lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app search f s R to listen live. You know,
Speaker 1: when I when I hear stuff like that, man, it's
Speaker 1: cool for me. But at the same time, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm old as hell, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: like it would be clicking into me because I don't
Speaker 1: feel old. But you know, I had a d k
Speaker 1: on a few weeks ago, and you know he told
Speaker 1: me something similar to that. I'm like, man, because we
Speaker 1: all we all got our guys. We watched me growing up, right,
Speaker 1: I remember, um, you know, like LaVar Arrington was with
Speaker 1: my with my favorite one of my favorite players, and
Speaker 1: so you get these dudes around and and from where
Speaker 1: I come from, we don't have. We didn't. We didn't
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to meet pros and meet other guys
Speaker 1: stuff like that. You you you know, your bro played, so
Speaker 1: you came across guys all the time. So me, that
Speaker 1: was that was super dope. And then too one of
Speaker 1: my one of my favorite things about you manage your nickname.
Speaker 1: I always I wanted to because I think they were
Speaker 1: doing uh it was NFL Network because somebody did something
Speaker 1: when they had a whole piece on it and I
Speaker 1: heard about it, but they didn't explain everything. Um, but
Speaker 1: how how did you initially come up with that? Because
Speaker 1: I love nickname me having lights out? How did you
Speaker 1: come up with that nickname? Oh man? It was actually
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two thousand and seventeen, I was
Speaker 1: playing against Clemson and I ended the game with like
Speaker 1: nineteen tagos to TFLs and the block field goal. And
Speaker 1: I came back on camp and somebody said you played
Speaker 1: like a screen maniac. And you know, once they said it,
Speaker 1: you know, I stuck with it, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of my persona now because you know, I'm I'm like
Speaker 1: the most polite person you ever mean, you know, I've
Speaker 1: never always been humble whenever we like talk down to anybody,
Speaker 1: But then between the white lines, it's just a switch.
Speaker 1: You Now, I'm I'm that competitor. I want to I
Speaker 1: want to make every player, I want to make every talking.
Speaker 1: But that's when that maniac mindset come in. You gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta put out your hair on Friday. You know,
Speaker 1: that's when you when you watch the game. Now, that's
Speaker 1: so many players who to play on the other side
Speaker 1: of the field. You know, they don't want no parts
Speaker 1: of it. And for me, you know, my mindset is
Speaker 1: every picture that's taken with a ball carrier got the
Speaker 1: ball in their hand, five three need to be in
Speaker 1: that picture. So that's that's that's just my mindset. I
Speaker 1: think that's what that that many minds say that that
Speaker 1: persona and that's where it came from. That's you know
Speaker 1: what's uh the really the good thing about that, For one,
Speaker 1: you can live up to it because a lot of
Speaker 1: these cats get nicknames. And the same thing happened to
Speaker 1: my sophomore in high school. I knocked out for four
Speaker 1: dudes in the game and I had twenty students come
Speaker 1: run up to me like, oh, you knocked those guys
Speaker 1: lights out, And I was like yeah, call me lights
Speaker 1: out and it kind of just stuff, but also too, man,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, your energy is infectious to
Speaker 1: the type, to the rest of the defense. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Like when whenever I see you, you
Speaker 1: always around guys and you always either motivating them or
Speaker 1: getting on them or just sometimes meet that pick up
Speaker 1: in practice because you know how to get man like,
Speaker 1: especially on training camp, you look him like, Man, I
Speaker 1: ain't trying to anybody, anybody to say that they're trying
Speaker 1: to go out to practice and they feel good every day.
Speaker 1: It's a damn lie like, but yeah, I got to man,
Speaker 1: because for one, you know, it's a it's an honor
Speaker 1: to it to be there. You know, I know it's tough,
Speaker 1: but you know you gotta enjoy what you do. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can have a nine in five center the desk
Speaker 1: all day every day. So if I can come out
Speaker 1: there with that great attitude, that great energy, you know,
Speaker 1: it rubs all because I mean, you know how it's pressed. Sorry,
Speaker 1: everything sluggage. If I go out there and streaming from
Speaker 1: the time I walk out of the locker room and
Speaker 1: to the to the last horn blows, and I'm just
Speaker 1: full of energy. There's no way that somebody else is
Speaker 1: not gonna pick up that same energy, especially if I'm
Speaker 1: out here talking trash, compete and with the offices of guys.
Speaker 1: Now my deep is guy gotta step up because of
Speaker 1: the office guy is gonna step up and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta shut this guy up. So it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: for one, it's the competitive nature in me. You know,
Speaker 1: they just talk. Then for me, I'm just I'm blessed
Speaker 1: in so many ways that you know, I gotta have fun.
Speaker 1: You know, not too many people can say, you know,
Speaker 1: I play an NFL. You know, I'm I'm gonna starting
Speaker 1: guy on the NFL. So I just enjoy what I do. Man.
Speaker 1: What's next though? Man? Because one thing I learned, like
Speaker 1: my early on in my career is when you have
Speaker 1: a lot of success earlier, you get on people rid
Speaker 1: off like at first, you know, they probably know you know,
Speaker 1: they probably know about you. They watch the film like,
Speaker 1: oh this this dude can go. But when you had
Speaker 1: the type of success all pro program and when you
Speaker 1: have all this stuff happening to you early, you start
Speaker 1: to get on people radar. What do you what do
Speaker 1: you see teams gonna end up doing now because everything
Speaker 1: changed my first year, in my second and my second
Speaker 1: and my third. You get on the maps, many're like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to do this. What do you see teams
Speaker 1: doing now that they didn't do before? Man, you know
Speaker 1: it started. It started about mid way my second season,
Speaker 1: and you see a lot of teams on the first
Speaker 1: beginning of the game, they're going to sideline and sideline.
Speaker 1: They want to see me sprint sideline and sideline. And
Speaker 1: then towards the end of the game or the end
Speaker 1: of the quarter, the end of the half, you know,
Speaker 1: they said, we're gonna run right at them. We're gonna
Speaker 1: make sure there's two or three bloggings in front of
Speaker 1: him so he can't make a play. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you just make sure that you know I stayed patient,
Speaker 1: you know, because a lot of cats and I gotta
Speaker 1: make a play. I gotta make a play, But you
Speaker 1: gotta believe in the other team guys on the field,
Speaker 1: so you didn't. I gotta make sure that I can
Speaker 1: tell you to just do my job and don't try
Speaker 1: to make a play, and just sit there and wait
Speaker 1: till it's my opportunity to make a play. So just
Speaker 1: making sure that you know when teams go side on
Speaker 1: the sideline, don't get don't get fed up. Don't get
Speaker 1: fed up. Said, Okay, this is all I'm doing, you know,
Speaker 1: just I'm just out here running the round. But if
Speaker 1: you're doing your job, that's that's all that matters. Who
Speaker 1: who's one of the favorite you guys you love watching
Speaker 1: up growing up? Like who if? You if you can
Speaker 1: mock because I you know, I hate when somebody said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, he played like this player all you know,
Speaker 1: because nobody don't. I don't want to be compared to anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't either. But who who was one
Speaker 1: of your guys many you watched growing up? Man of
Speaker 1: your game? After I don't believe it or not, man
Speaker 1: um I started. I started on the offensive side of
Speaker 1: the ball, so I was a big Reggie Bush fan.
Speaker 1: Like when I got you played offense, win I played.
Speaker 1: I played offense all the way through high school. I
Speaker 1: got recruited to play receiver and linebacker. And when I
Speaker 1: went to South Carolina State, I actually started off as
Speaker 1: a receiver and then you know, um that because I
Speaker 1: went in probably like one eighty at the time, so
Speaker 1: they were like, you know, in uh in the spring,
Speaker 1: we gonna try your linebacker. So I went to linebacker
Speaker 1: and started making plays, and I never seen an office
Speaker 1: again until my my junior year. They gave me one rep. Um,
Speaker 1: you're begging for that rep though, was you asking? Of course, listen,
Speaker 1: this is what I did every so every day my
Speaker 1: junior year, I seen my head coach, Jabrill Pepper's highlights
Speaker 1: every day they said, okay, you know, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you opportunity. And then he gave me the opportunity. You know,
Speaker 1: I ran the post route, you got past the safety touchdown,
Speaker 1: hold on, you scored on when that one opportunity you
Speaker 1: had that? Yes, sir, yes, sir, against Savannah State two
Speaker 1: thousands and seventeen. That's so man. So are you are
Speaker 1: you lobbying now for them to give you any office
Speaker 1: of time? Of course, of course you know what you've
Speaker 1: been doing. I joke. I joke with him all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, just saying, you know, just throw me and
Speaker 1: throw the ball up to me. And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a big guy, big target. You know, you put
Speaker 1: me in the ren zone, put me the rens on,
Speaker 1: let me go up and get because you know I
Speaker 1: played basketball I was jumping about forty one for two
Speaker 1: wins vertical. I have long arms on physical so I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you see my Instagram handle, it's missed the
Speaker 1: hop flight. I mean I was going around. I was
Speaker 1: dugging first. Come on, man, come on now a little.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not talking about the football players because
Speaker 1: when people ask me about playing basketball, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I was Ben Wallace. I was gonna give you ten
Speaker 1: and twelve boards and blocks. Becauld you who I was like.
Speaker 1: I was like I was like a baby Brown. When
Speaker 1: Broun came in the league when he first really couldn't shoot,
Speaker 1: but he was bigger, and he was just you know,
Speaker 1: driving to the whole dugging on everybody, going to post,
Speaker 1: doing work in the post and after the great mid range.
Speaker 1: And that's what I can say to myself was because
Speaker 1: I was I was, I was like a I was
Speaker 1: like a four. But when I went to one a
Speaker 1: high school, but you know, they put me at a five.
Speaker 1: But so every big man they that was quick, they
Speaker 1: couldn't they couldn't guard me down there. Hey man, I
Speaker 1: gotta see those highlights, you know, I gotta see something
Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of cash but like even man,
Speaker 1: I played basketball in high school and I did this,
Speaker 1: and now I'm looking for those highlights somewhere on YouTube,
Speaker 1: you young off. So I know they got my legs
Speaker 1: out there. They really don't, man, only only highlights. I
Speaker 1: got a basketball because I mean we we was in
Speaker 1: my high school, it was football and baseball that got
Speaker 1: the most love, you know what I'm saying. So when
Speaker 1: it came to basketball, man, it was to a point
Speaker 1: where one year we put stats in, the next year
Speaker 1: we don't put stats in. So I mean they really
Speaker 1: didn't really care about basketball. Man. We we just started
Speaker 1: now and really saying, Okay, we gotta show basketball more love.
Speaker 1: And now you know we're we're making basketball bigger and
Speaker 1: late view. But they don't have too many hot I
Speaker 1: don't have one highlight, and it does mean my maybe
Speaker 1: my probably my tener called I looked like I was
Speaker 1: real small, so it's probably in my tent gree year. UM,
Speaker 1: but I think it stats up in the and UM
Speaker 1: and the Sports Report somewhere with last thing, man, UM
Speaker 1: tell me about because I've reposted the day about your
Speaker 1: maniac foundation, UM, and when you posted on Twitter, I've
Speaker 1: retweeted it that day, but I didn't get I was
Speaker 1: looking forward. It's I can get some more information on it.
Speaker 1: But tell me, tell me a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, just coming come in front
Speaker 1: of hood man and you know, not really having too
Speaker 1: much growing up and seeing both sides. You know, I
Speaker 1: got two brothers in cars rain and one brother dead,
Speaker 1: and my mom had you got kids, got a lot
Speaker 1: of you got a lot of brothers and sisters, right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my mom. My mom had nine kids. So
Speaker 1: I mean just seeing her work day in the day out.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I didn't have a lot of stuff on,
Speaker 1: you know, for food and stuff like that. So you know,
Speaker 1: with my foundation right now, we want to start. We
Speaker 1: want to touch three through pillars right now. You know,
Speaker 1: the first pillar is having family put food on the table.
Speaker 1: The second pillar is you know, um math manias getting people.
Speaker 1: We're getting kids now todays man, just to fall in love.
Speaker 1: We're doing school work, you know, especially in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: people sitting at the computer all day. I know, me,
Speaker 1: that's something that I don't want to do. So I
Speaker 1: can understand what the kids are going through. And you
Speaker 1: see it in South Carolina, mean Graves or you know
Speaker 1: they're going down the hill right now because you know,
Speaker 1: people don't want to sit still at the computer. And
Speaker 1: then the third one is getting kids more active, you know,
Speaker 1: getting them over their fitness and their health. And that
Speaker 1: comes from the video games. A lot of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of kids nowadays, you know, they want to sit
Speaker 1: down and see it, um play video games. So we
Speaker 1: want to touch them three of aspects, and just trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to give back, man, especially to
Speaker 1: the communities that you know gave me absolutely everything, which
Speaker 1: is the Latest community and Indianapolis community that's dope, man,
Speaker 1: because of me, I come from kind of the same background. Man.
Speaker 1: We gott grow up in pag County, Maryland and the
Speaker 1: Washington d C. And I grew up in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. Then, Man, when that when that place was
Speaker 1: just terrible. And you know, one thing that always realizes
Speaker 1: that people always respect the guys to come back, Like
Speaker 1: you got some people to come out from out of town.
Speaker 1: They do some great stuff and whatever, but it's nothing
Speaker 1: like you know, dudes going back to where they come from.
Speaker 1: Because what happens is what happened to me. And I
Speaker 1: don't and I don't know if it's if you're seeing
Speaker 1: the same thing too. But when I go back or
Speaker 1: went back, people start looking at you like, damn, man,
Speaker 1: he made it. You know he made it. I could
Speaker 1: do it because you didn't see these out of town
Speaker 1: on these foreigners to you that are going back and
Speaker 1: doing this work. And so you know, how how was
Speaker 1: that reception when you go back and do that. Man,
Speaker 1: you're getting you know a lot of support back from
Speaker 1: when you come from. Yeah. Man, it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: of it. It's nothing but love. And I go back,
Speaker 1: you know, every I mean everybody loves seeing me. Then
Speaker 1: just you know, when I go back, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: at the high school every day. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: have nothing to do at high school, but I'm there,
Speaker 1: you know, just showing my face given because I sat
Speaker 1: in the same ceas the kids there, and I mean
Speaker 1: no teachers told me the same you know, say the
Speaker 1: same thing. I had my eight name teacher. You know,
Speaker 1: we had to write a paper say what you want
Speaker 1: to be in life? And I said, you know me,
Speaker 1: I wrote, I want to be a professional football player.
Speaker 1: And he told me to write a realistic goals. So
Speaker 1: I mean he's still there. So if he told me that.
Speaker 1: Imagine you know, he's telling the kids the same thing.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy when you say people coming back and
Speaker 1: they give their kids that at the motivation. I remember
Speaker 1: my brother first year in the NFL and he came
Speaker 1: back and did his first annual football camp and he
Speaker 1: brought Antoine. But they from you know, antwining for later
Speaker 1: you too. So when he came back, Antoine had on
Speaker 1: his Super Bowl rings and he came back and just
Speaker 1: you know, that talk was you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to make it, this is what you gotta do. And
Speaker 1: just seeing my brother and Antoine and I mean antny
Speaker 1: other thing to come through late view and say okay,
Speaker 1: if I can do it, you can do it. That
Speaker 1: gave me that mortivating say okay, I want to be
Speaker 1: one of them. And I feel like you know a
Speaker 1: lot of professional or professional athletes or you know, any
Speaker 1: famous people, if they go back into their hometown more,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so many other more people or
Speaker 1: more kids would stay out of trouble, because if you're
Speaker 1: going back, you're preaching, hey man, stay out of troublest,
Speaker 1: out of trouble. You can do this. You don't have
Speaker 1: to do that. If they can say, Okay, my role
Speaker 1: model is telling me to stay out of trouble. Boom,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay out of trouble. And I feel like, man,
Speaker 1: people think they're too good to go back. Don't never
Speaker 1: let the moment be too big for you or thinking
Speaker 1: that you're too big to go back to your hometown.
Speaker 1: Use the ones that kid. And that's my whole mindset
Speaker 1: that I would never be too big for this small time.
Speaker 1: I would never be too big to talk to a kid.
Speaker 1: And I just have that that giving they given the
Speaker 1: heart and I think that's one thing that that makes
Speaker 1: me so great because I have a have a great
Speaker 1: personality and I I just love to put a smile
Speaker 1: on other people's faces. My dude, man, I'm sure they
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And I appreciate you for taking a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes. Man, and I gotta get out there, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at your schedule, got coming up, but
Speaker 1: I'll be at them games man to come up, come
Speaker 1: let you and then uh so you go to work. Man.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to watch. Oh yeah, man, I'll be
Speaker 1: waiting for you. Man. I appreciate the opportunity to touch
Speaker 1: to you. Bro. Guys. Thanks for listening and twee another
Speaker 1: lights Out podcast with me Sean Maryland. Uh, that was sweet,
Speaker 1: that was awesome. And then I was I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out I've seen a few specials on some
Speaker 1: networks about his nickname in Maniac and how he got it.
Speaker 1: But now that was cool. And also how funny was
Speaker 1: that about Philip Rivers and then rapping. I tried to
Speaker 1: explain to people over and over and over for years
Speaker 1: that Philip does this, and they said, no, no, Philip River,
Speaker 1: don't wrap. I'm telling you Philip. I heard Philip rapping
Speaker 1: probably more than ten a fifteen times and ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen different songs. Uh. So that was cool. Also, good
Speaker 1: luck on his Maniac foundation and getting back to the
Speaker 1: criaive man, because at the end of the day, that's
Speaker 1: what it's all about. So thank you guys for listening
Speaker 1: to another lights Out podcast with me saw Merriman, and uh,
Speaker 1: we'll keep it high. We'll keep another one coming in
Speaker 1: next week.