Prolebrity: Beyond the Game

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Memo to Merriman: Please Don’t Play!

I need some help, people.  Can someone forward this blog to Shawne Merriman for me?  And do it before he plays his first game this Sunday, please! 

I haven’t seen him in a couple of months.  I’m sure he’s been working out hard and travelling around being the superstar he is.  I’ve been on ESPN pleading with him to no avail; I can’t call him because it probably will go in one ear and out the other.  I can’t text him because my thumbs would fall off in fatigue.  Regardless of how he gets this message, just make sure he gets it, Okie Dokie!

Shawne, please don’t play this year.  I know you have heard that from every Tom, Dick and Harry who eats at Seau’s restaurant, and all the skycaps en route to your Doctor Tour 4.  But even the medical geniuses, who are the biggest brains on the planet, couldn’t convince you to do what all the elderly people tell the kids in my neighborhood, “Stay off the grass!”  And I know why you don’t listen to any of them.  Because I thought the same thing when I played, ‘What do they know? They are not me.’ 

Well, I have a story to tell you that may not change your mind, but you can relate to. 

It’s 2001 and I’m the man! (Just like you!) I was coming off 10.5 sacks and just signed the biggest contract in San Diego Charger’s history. Because of my status, I was afforded lots of off-the-field opportunities, just like you!  I was a media darling and you could see me everywhere from the top of Los Angeles to the bottom of San Diego during any given day. (More on the Fox TV deal later.) And then, something happened that would change my playing career forever. 

During the Wednesday practice before our first regular-season game against the Washington Redskins, I broke my foot!  Immediately, I was cared for by a great medical staff including head trainer James Collins and head surgeon Dr. Chow.  They told me I had two options:  

1) I could have surgery. The surgery would entail putting a metal pin in my foot, and I could play whenever that healed, maybe in 4-8 weeks. But that was going to be risky.  Risky, because that course of action meant that my foot wouldn’t heal until after the season, due to continuous wear and tear. (Ask Jevon Kearse about the effects of this injury.)  I would have to wear a bone stimulator daily AND rehabilitate it around the clock.  With all that said and done, I STILL wouldn’t be 100 percent. 

2) I could have the surgery, wait until I was 100 percent, which probably would have been the next year, and then play the next season at my best. 

Well, I made the same tough-guy decision you have made.  I played on it.  And I played well.  I had 13 sacks, went to the Pro Bowl, and to the outside world, I looked like a warrior and a stud.  But let’s look deeper at my regretful choice.

That entire year, I couldn’t practice at all.  I used to say, “my foot is on fire” because of the constant burn and pain.  It would only subside on game day for about 3 hours … with the assistance of a nice 4-inch needle in my foot and buttocks.  I couldn’t walk Monday thru Saturday, but I could run around 300 pounders on Sunday. 

Because of all the physical alteration that I was doing to my body, compensation effects occurred.  Ask any doctor and well-skilled athlete about compensation and watch them cringe.  As you know, the human body is in better alignment than that Rolls Royce Phantom we both own. If one thing is out of sync, other muscle groups overwork to stabilize and function.  Well, that happened for an entire year and in a major way. 

The greater of the two evils was the fact that I couldn’t practice and therefore I couldn’t get better.  I hear you will be on the same “light” type of practice schedule.  Brother, when I say your game will suffer, it will suffer!  Technique will take a hit, your overall fitness and conditioning will suffer, and you can’t get better because you are not healthy.  You know what coaches like Norv Turner say (he was there with me) before practice: “if we don’t get better guys, we are getting worse” … but hey, as long as the cow has milk on Sunday @ 1pm, who cares, right?!

Maybe I’m being cynical.  I did go to the Pro Bowl and win the Rambo Award from the organization for my courage (yeah, right).  Or maybe, I’m being real. 

The next year, in the fourth game, I tore my abdominal wall and was diagnosed with a sports hernia, which was very hard to detect at that time.  (Ask Donovan McNabb about this one.)  Of course, when it occurred I was told I was going to be fine and sipped another tablespoon of “Suck it up Juice.”  After the season, I had surgery and the doctor told me that I had the worse tear of an abdomen that he had ever seen in sports.  Why?  Because I continued to play with it during the season. 

Production inevitably dropped, crashing like the waves at La Jolla Beach, and I was sent packing from the beaches of San Diego, a former shell of my once dominating self. 

Let me retract and not understate that being a media darling didn’t go over too well with General Manager A.J. Smith (you know him?.).  Let’s just say he doesn’t like to see his player’s being blinded by camera lights — just stadium lights!  And I hear you signed a deal with Fox to do studio analysis every Thursday after practice, flying a private jet back and forth to Los Angeles. (I just had déjà vu.)  Well, perhaps that won’t be such a good idea now. You might want to be at the Charger’s complex getting constant rehab, submerged in a tub of ice, recovering from the previous week’s performance and heading straight home to sleep in a Hyperbaric Chamber.  (T.O. might have an extra one.)

Summed up, those two years of “tough guy” largely contributed to why I’m currently on NFL Live instead of in your front seven still sacking quarterbacks.

But, what brought all this into perspective was when, at an event this year I talked to a doctor who was familiar with my situation, and who was obviously distanced from the circumstances of that time and the pressure that came with it, plainly stated, “You never, ever should’ve played on that foot that year … that’s what killed you!” 

The rap group, Black Sheep said it best, “The choice is yours!” 

Now I know nothing is wrong with being the black sheep.

Damn, too late now…

Dat Dude