Thunder God
March 18, 2008 02:15 PM | General
March 18, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Those of you old enough to remember digging into your pocket for a quarter to buy comic books can certainly recall the Stan Lee fictional character Thor – God of Thunder.
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| Thor Merrow is enjoying his move from defensive tackle to fullback this spring.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Having already created the Incredible Hulk, Lee’s dilemma in the early 1960s was to develop a superhero that was stronger than the strongest human. His solution was to come up with the Norse god Thor, who eventually caught on with comic book readers more familiar with Greek and Roman gods.
The Marvel version of Thor is a superhero noble and very self-assured, sometimes to the point of arrogance. He also possesses a natural affinity for Earth and has an obligation to protect the mortals that occupy it.
How all of this applies to West Virginia University junior fullback Thor Merrow is unknown, other than the fact that the two share a very uncommon first name. And like the fictional comic book character, Thor Merrow feels an obligation to deliver some of his own thunder on the football field.
Since joining the Mountaineer program in 2006, Merrow has always had a reputation for being an extraordinary competitor despite possessing ordinary dimensions (6-1 and 250 pounds) for a defensive tackle. When it came to D-linemen, Merrow was basically a Corvette engine inside a Chevette body. But that doesn't mean the collisions were any less violent.
“The one thing about nose guard is you get to hit somebody every play,” Merrow says with toothy, ear-to-ear grin. “If you don’t like to hit somebody then that’s not the place for a person.”
Though being outweighed sometimes by as much as 80 pounds against those beefy offensive linemen, Merrow fought on against sometimes overwhelming odds, much like his comic book counterpart did against Radioactive Man, Grey Gargoyle, the Frost Giants, and of course, Wrecking Crew.
But after 20-some episodes battling in the trenches, Merrow sensed it was time for a change. The notion of moving to fullback had been in the back of his mind for a while and when new head coach Bill Stewart jokingly brought it up in the hallway a month or so ago it stuck to Thor - just like Silver Surfer once did.
Why continue to swim upstream against all those hulking defensive tackles when I can swim downstream with the fullbacks, he thought? You get to wear a number in the thirties, you can take a couple of bars off your face mask and you don’t have to strap on those bulky knee braces anymore. Plus, there’s the chance that you might even get to touch the football - especially now with all those new coaches around.
“The first time it was said I didn’t know they were serious … but I was pushing it,” Merrow admitted. “I love fullback. I miss defense but I love fullback. In rec league I played fullback and in high school my coaches put me at tight end. They moved me around and put me in motion - stuff like that. Coming to college everything that was mentioned was defense so I really never thought about it.”
Yet the more Merrow thought about playing fullback the more he liked the idea. His dad Jeff, one of those hulking tackles who played for the Mountaineers in the early 1970s and then later in the pros for the Atlanta Falcons, thought fullback might be a good move for his son as well.
“He knows that I have no problem with hitting somebody,” Thor said. “He’s like if you feel you can do it, do it.”
There was one catch, however. Stewart told Merrow he was going to have to slim down from the 262 pounds he had packed on trying to get to a more realistic weight for defensive tackle.
“He was like if you lose weight I’ll think about it. After talking to Coach (Jeff) Mullen I started running, losing weight and getting my speed back,” Merrow said. “They told me they were going to give me a shot.”
Probably the best thing about playing fullback, says Merrow, is that now he gets a running start when he hits people.
“At nose guard you didn’t have a running start. You just lined up on the center and teed off on him,” Merrow explained. “As a fullback you know who your guy is and you get a five-yard head start to hit somebody. I do get the enjoyment of now I get speed to hit somebody and I’m not so much undersized as I was at nose guard.”
The experiment seems to be working. Merrow stood out in Monday’s practice both blocking and running with the football. On one play he actually was able to put somebody to the ground with a single jarring, thunderous bolt of energy.
“I just went straight through the middle. They handed off to me and I went straight through the hole and somebody got into my way,” Merrow shrugged.
Fullback is a position of concern for the coaching staff this year. Owen Schmitt’s eligibility has been exhausted and West Virginia’s two backups, Maxwell Anderson and Sam Morrone, are both nursing knee injuries. Anderson is further along than Morrone although he is not yet able to participate in contact drills.
That means the opportunity is there for Merrow to learn an offense that he says is “one of the crazier ones out there.” And Merrow admits there is a lot to learn.
“I just started. I’m in just day three of getting to play it,” he said.
Thor has yet to match the God of Thunder’s feats of superhuman strength – he hasn’t hurled Odinsword through a Celestial or entered into a heightened state of ‘Warrior’s Madness’ – nor has he matched Owen Schmitt’s more humanly feats: picking a Volkswagen up over his head, eating the 60 chicken wings at one time, or taking a helmet to his forehead after whiffing on a rugby punt.
Give him time. Don’t forget, he’s only been doing this now for three days.
