By Lori Lyons
Like most new kids in school, Kirk Merritt had a tough time adjusting when he first transferred from Isidore Newman School to Destrehan High School two years ago.
“It was a lot different,” Merritt said. “I was like, dang! This is a real high school. This is 5A versus 2A.”
And folks at Destrehan had a time learning about Merritt as well. No one knew a whole lot about Merritt – not even his name. For the longest time, classmates and his coaches just called him, “The New Kid” or “The Kid from Newman.”
“We didn’t know what we were getting,” said Destrehan coach Stephen Robicheaux. “We heard he was coming and said, ‘Sure. Come on out.’ Then one of the coaches, I think it was Greg Boyne, saw his highlight tape and said, ‘Coach, you need to look at this.’”
Then it didn’t take very long for Merritt to introduce himself or make himself known. Now, after two school years, Merritt is one of the most popular students at Destrehan. And after two football seasons, he has made a name as one of the best athletes to wear the Wildcat uniform. On Feb. 4, Merritt signed a national letter of intent to play college football at the University of Oregon.
“It’s been my dream to go to Oregon since I was nine years old,” Merritt said. “LSU was always my team. But when I was 9 I watched Oregon play in the BCS National Championship and that’s when I said I wanted to play there someday.”
Shortly after transferring from Newman to Destrehan in the summer of 2013, Merritt started to work to make that dream come true. In his very first scrimmage as a Wildcat, “The New Kid” came up with several stellar catches against Salmen, one for a touchdown and the other for a long gain.
They would not be his last. In his junior season, Merritt had 23 catches for 521 yards and seven touchdowns. Shortly after that, he began to realize that his dream of playing football at the college level could happen when he received his first official offer from Louisiana Tech. But he began to think bigger dreams when his second offer came from Washington State. His third offer came from Tulane.
“That kind of made me think I can go anywhere,” Merritt said. “It was a very humbling experience, knowing that all my hard work was paying off.”
Heading into his senior season, Merritt (5-foot-11, 200 pounds) was one of the nation’s top recruits, earning a 5-Star rating with some scouting services, earning top scores at national scouting combines and with teams like LSU, Texas A&M, Auburn, Alabama and, yes, Oregon clamoring for his talents.
Said Robicheaux: “Funny story. We couldn’t get anyone from Oregon to come recruit him. We kept trying to call people. Finally, we got a hold of the baseball coach and told him, ‘Hey. There’s a really good kid here who is really interested in your program. You need to send someone down here.’”
And even after Destrehan retooled its offense to more of a run game, Merritt continued to stand out. He caught when asked, ran when asked and blocked when he needed to. He finished the season with 26 catches for 440 yards and seven touchdowns and 46 rushes for 678 yards and seven touchdowns. “He was very unselfish,” Robicheaux said.
But when it came time to make the decision for himself, Merritt admitted he had a very hard time making up his mind.“Do I stay close to home? Do I stay in the SEC or do I go somewhere?” he said. “It was very hard. Texas A&M, they recruited me hard.”
On Monday, February 2, before a packed crowd of family, friends and teammates at the Sports Pub in Destrehan, Merritt uttered the words he had dreamed of saying – “Oregon.”
“It was like 500 pounds, 1,000 pounds off me,” he said. “It was a huge relief with all that pressure off me.”
And there have been no regrets, he said. All he thinks of now is the thousands of uniform combinations the Ducks have and how he’s going to make himself stand out among a team of standouts.
“I’m very versatile,” he said. “I think that’s a strength I showed. If I can keep doing that, I think I’ll be all right.”
A full list and pictures of all the players–and the colleges they chose–are available in the Feb. 12 edition of the St. Charles Herald-Guide.
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