MVN - Most Valuable Network

Draft Diaries: Phillip Merling

Welcome to the newest series here at The Phish Tank, Draft Diaries!  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving you a glimpse into the Dolphins Draft picks.  Not just their skills and what they bring, but who they are and what makes them tick.

This is the first entry, so you might be asking why we’re starting with second pick Phillip Merling.  The reason is that Jake Long was the number one pick, so he’s already been talked about for weeks and weeks.  We know a lot, and maybe all we need to know, about him.  But, I knew next to nothing about Phillip Merling.  He has quite an interesting story, which was recently told in the Palm Beach Post.  It’s a good writeup, go ahead and read it.

DE Phillip Merling was one of those kids that was born far bigger than his peers.  In first grade, he was the size of a 3rd grader and had more energy than the Tazmanian Devil.  His teacher suggested sports, specifically football, to his mother Sharon.  The very first challenge to what has become a successful life in football came when Sharon discovered the nearest league required children to be 8.  Phillip had just turned 6.

They went to meet with the coaches of one of the teams, and when they saw a 6 year old as big as their 8 year olds, it’s funny how fast they found a way to get him in.  But, his mother had to be concerned, right?  Her younger boy banging heads with the big boys and all?  She did have one fear.

“I was a little afraid for the other kids,” she told the Post.

As it has been for many a man, football was the cure-all for Phillip.  He settled down, and his grades improved.  But just as football was taking him higher and higher, his life was about to be turned upside down.

Phillip’s parents lived apart; his father was a naval officer and Phillip was born at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va.  Phillip and his sister Heather would spend summers with their father at his 3 story home near Langley Air Force Base, and Phillip would often be babysat by his uncle, Chris Rumph.  Chris, 14 years older than Phillip, would visit his sister’s family in the Summer, working at a restaurant.

Sharon would miss her family though, and finally convinced Phillip’s father to move back to South Carolina so the family could live together.  While that made things nice for a while, in the end it would lead to a wrenching event for Phillip.

One day, his father stayed home while the rest of the family went to visit a deathly ill family member.  When the family returned, Phillip’s dad and all his belongings…were gone.  For the rest of that night, Sharon heard her son outside cursing under his breath and hitting the shed.

“It was devastating to him.  He was so angry - hurt, most of all.  He was in disbelief.  What happened, what went wrong?  Everything was so normal until then,” she said.

Without his father in his life, and with his mother distracted by the shock of being abandoned, Phillip began to rebel.  But not traditionally.  He’d leave home, but just to walk around town, even as night fell.  He’d go to the homes of his grandparents, and spent some nights at his uncle Chris’ home.  Chris had since become his football coach at Calhoun County High School.  Phillip would randomly show up, ask Chris’ wife Kila to make her famous pancakes, stay for dinner, then spend the night.

One night, Chris and Kila were driving home near nightfall when they saw a large shadow walking down the road.  It was Phillip, walking nowhere in particular.  For Chris, enough was enough.  The next day, Phillip began the first day of his junior year having moved in with his uncle.

Chris was slightly uncomfortable being a father to a child less than 15 years younger, but he realized he had to lay down the law.  Curfew, chores, the whole 9 yards.  This went amazingly, until Chris got a chance to be an assistant coach at the University of Memphis.  They would move immediately, and Chris was not going to leave Phillip in Calhoun County, where the easy-living often trapped young men into staying at one level for a lifetime.  Phillip didn’t want to leave with his senior year about to start, but he decided to go with his new family.

He played his senior year at Cordova High School, and got offers from South Carolina and Clemson.  But his grades had slacked, and he couldn’t take them.  Clemson said they’d take him if he graduated Fork Union Military Academy.  Merling stepped up to the latest challenge, getting up at 5AM, marching before dawn, and learning all the discipline.

In a moment out of a movie script, Phillip saw Chris for the first time since entering the school at his graduation.  He couldn’t stop the tears, and Kila caught them in a picture which she now keeps in her living room.  Chris has 2 children of his own now, but credits Phillip for helping him learn how to be a dad.

Chris and Phillip reunited one more time when Chris was hired as Clemson’s defensive line coach before Phillip’s second year.  Chris was coaching Phillip again, but knew he only needed football coaching, as the man was ready.  Phillip fell in love with a student at South Carolina (SCANDAL!  Sure that went over really well in Tiger-Land), and they had a daughter he named Justice.  That made the decision to leave as a junior easier, for his family.

Phillip Merling is a mature, strong, disciplined young man that won’t flunk out of this league for not trying.  He is working through sports hernia surgery, which is somewhat limiting him in rookie camp, but the flashes are already showing.

Be on the lookout for the next Draft Diaries, where we will talk about former Michigan QB and Dolphins 3rd selection Chad Henne!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 2:07 am and is filed under Miami Dolphins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.