Chris Merritt plans to make some memories as the defensive backs coach for USA Football's Junior National Team at the International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Junior World Championship next summer in Canton, Ohio. None, however, will be able to compare with the life-changing event that happened to him while he was coaching in Germany in 1996.
Merritt was the defensive coordinator for the Hamburg Blue Devils under head coach George White as the national championship playoffs were underway. Two nights before the semifinal game, White, who had spent time in the San Francisco area as a high school football coach, suffered a massive heart attack during a team function at a go-kart track.
"He died in my hands," Merritt said. "I performed CPR on him, rotating with another player, for about 20 minutes, but doctors said the heart attack was so severe that he was probably dead before he hit the ground. That made me grow up and become a man real quick. Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life was call his wife."
Merritt became the interim head coach, and guided the Blue Devils to victory two days later. The unlikely rise of the young coach was capped off when Hamburg won the national championship at the German Bowl three weeks after White's death.
"I was only a little bit older than George's son," Merritt said. "He was the head coach and ran the offense, and I ran the defense. I re-tooled some things with the receivers coach. I didn't have much knowledge or say on the offense, so we had to rag-tag to put together a game plan. It was the most emotional game I've ever been part of, I can tell you that."
Under the circumstances, Merritt didn't have time go around calculating whether or not his age as a head coach was a good or bad thing. Instead, he was simply doing his job, all while being part of one of the great unknown football stories of all time.
"I was a pretty young coach in a league that had coaches like Jerry Claiborne, Mario Russo. I was 26 years old when I signed the contract to be the head coach," said Merritt, a native of Bloomington, Ind., who played football at Indiana University. "I made a decision career-wise to coach in Europe, and being as young as I was, to be honest, I had wondered if it was a smart decision. But I got to coach a lot more, a lot quicker."
Merritt, who initially went to Europe as one of two American players on a team in Sweden, spent three years (1996-98) as coach of the Blue Devils. During that period, Merritt helped the squad become the team to beat in Germany.
Now the head coach at the all-male Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, Merritt will get to renew acquaintances with German football officials, as Germany won the European Junior Championship in July and will field a formidable team next summer at the IFAF Junior World Championship.
Max von Garnier, known as the best German receiver who has ever played American football, played for Merritt with the Blue Devils. He's now the offensive coordinator of the junior team that will compete in Canton.
"He's a legend over there when it comes to American football," Merritt said. "He just received an honor from the government for his involvement with American football."
Meritt created some lasting memories while overseas. In the 1999 German Bowl, Merritt's Hamburg team faced the Braunschweig Lions in front of 31,500 flag-waving Germans.
"It was as close to being in the U.S. for a big game as you could be," said Merritt, whose Hamburg teams would draw about 10,000-12,000 fans per game. "The whole atmosphere was incredible. The fans are a lot of fun. They never shut up and never sit down. All the NFL guys who were in with NFL Europe at the time were on the sidelines."
In fact, several of those coaching were scouting players on Merritt's team. In one draft of European players by NFL Europe teams, four defensive linemen from the Blue Devils were the first four players taken.
Merritt brings an insider's look at what to expect from the German team.
"First of all, I think people are going to be surprised at the quality of football they have over there," Merritt said. "I was very fortunate to have some really talented players. Guys like Constantin Ritzmann, who played at Tennessee and later the Falcons and Bills; Claudius Osei went to Florida State. They both played in Hamburg. There are several quality European football players, as the Americans found out in the adult world championships last summer.
"One advantage for us is they don't have the resources we have here. It's easy for me to pick up a phone and drive 20 minutes to watch the University of Miami practice."
With soccer as the dominant sport in Germany, most of the better athletes are steered away from the gridiron.
"Another advantage for us is that quarterbacks here in the U.S. are better developed. Football is a secondary sport in Germany," Merritt said. "You'll have ten guys on the team who can kick a field goal from 40 yards, but they won't have the ability to read coverages or pick apart a secondary. A lot of that has to do with the fact that if they're good at soccer, they're playing soccer. But the bigger kids on the team also grew up playing soccer, so they're going to be pretty good athletes."
Merritt also claimed three titles in the Euro Bowl during his tenure. In that event, champions from eight European countries play a single-elimination tournament over the course of the season.
"It was harder to win the German Bowl than it was the Euro Bowl, just because so many of the top teams were in Germany," Merritt said.
Lending his overseas experience to Team USA is an honor that Merritt is not taking lightly.
"I was surprised to learn that I was picked to be on the staff," he said. "I didn't know how they got my name. If you look at the resumes of the other coaches, my high school achievements certainly don't match the success of some of those guys. We're still trying to get past Miami Northwestern, the national champion from last year."
Regardless of where he turns during the Junior World Championship, Merritt won't be separated too far from the teams he's facing.
"I spent two years playing in Sweden, then coached in Germany," Merritt said. "To make it worse, my wife's from Canada. It won't matter where I turn, I'm going to know somebody or have my whole family rooting against me."
It's easy to root for a coach like Merritt. Following his tenure in Hamurg, Merritt was a coach of the team in Stuttgart. His father's illness drew him back to the U.S., where Merritt served as the secondary/special teams coach at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa.
He then learned of the opening at Christopher Columbus, where he started coaching in the spring of 2001. The list of alums reads like a Who's Who of Miami football: Grieses, Shulas, Buoniconti and Highsmith are just some of the notable graduates.
"This was a great situation for me, coming here," Merritt said.
What was billed as a job interview by committee instead evolved into Merritt holding court with Bob Griese.
"The others asked about one general question each, and that went quickly and was painless," Merritt said. "Then [Griese] starts giving me the football questions, and I can't get past the voice. After about an hour, he starts taking Indiana-Purdue shots, and I'm thinking ‘Either I've got the job or he's having a lot of fun right now.'"
Along with his wife and three children, Merritt's coaching journey has always included a bit of fun. But he'll never forget the day the profession turned him into a man.
Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
