Merriman's Positive Outlook

SAN DIEGO -- Word of the positive steroid test came by letter from the NFL offices. And when Shawne Merriman opened it as he stood in front of his locker at the San Diego Chargers' practice facility, he thought it must have been a joke. His first words were, "What the hell?"

Then he looked around the room, scanning the cubicles for the telltale cameras hidden behind practice jerseys. But there were none.

His teammates dressing nearby did not giggle. Nobody jumped from the shower stalls to say "gotcha."

Instead, Shawne Merriman simply stood alone with a letter saying he had tested positive for steroids and that he would be suspended for four weeks. And only then did he realize that the paper in his hand was not a joke at all but an announcement that the name he had carefully built, his rise from homelessness to becoming the NFL's defensive rookie of the year last year had been tainted, perhaps forever.

All of it diluted to a single word: cheat.

But unlike many of the other players who have received similar letters and also wound up standing bereft in the middle of their locker rooms hoping desperately for a candid camera, Merriman did not disappear. He did not slink into seclusion, but rather held a news conference the day after his suspension was announced. He chose to accept the suspension rather than appeal, knowing he could return in plenty of time for the playoffs, which start Sunday for the Chargers when they host New England in an AFC semifinal.

He took the suspension and came back to Prince George's County, where he starred at Douglass High School and the University of Maryland. He appeared at Maryland football games. He spoke to children at the Greentree Adolescent and Futurebound Independent Living Programs about his childhood, about his time in a homeless shelter when he was young. He even held his annual coat drive on the University of Maryland campus.

"You hide when you have to," he said recently while standing before the same locker where he opened the letter. "You hide when you've done something wrong."

Despite the damning evidence of a league-mandated test and an official letter, Merriman insists he has done nothing intentionally wrong. He said the anabolic steroid his lawyer said was nandrolone must have found its way into a nutritional supplement accepted by the league.

Linn Goldberg, professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and a steroid expert, cites a 2003 investigation done for the International Olympic Committee in which 240 supplements in the U.S. were tested and 45 tested positive for steroids. Nandrolone was the most common. "It is plausible," Goldberg said of the explanation. "There's a reason why the supplement industry needs to be better regulated." Merriman said that until he received the letter from the league, he thought steroids were things that were shot with huge needles. He was going to sue the supplement manufacturer, then decided not to.

This information alone, disbelieved by many, was reason for much of America to mistrust him. Merriman understood this, knew exactly what they were thinking and yet he pushed ahead.

"It was tough when everything happened," he said. "My side wasn't out. I was guilty before I even had a chance to say anything. But I'm not a person who runs from anything.