There is something enchanting about NASCAR that caught the attention of Shawne Merriman long before he entered the NFL.
Growing up in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C., the retired NFL linebacker said he watched races on TV. He followed superstars Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty and remembers buying NASCAR-themed toys, but there was never an opportunity to meet the drivers or develop a personal connection to the sport.
NASCAR has been working to diversify its drivers and crews, particularly with the launch of the Drive for Diversity program in 2004. Merriman is ready to help.
Now five years removed from the NFL, he wants to contribute to NASCAR’s growth and expand its accessibility to kids who lack the information and opportunity to learn about the sport.
“In a perfect world, I would love to be able to work with NASCAR and work with (its) diversity program to bring maybe not a full race, but some type of a race to the inner cities,” Merriman told For The Win. “I would love to get some of the drivers out to meet some of the minority kids in the neighborhoods to let them know that could be them.”
It’s a daunting task for one person to try and influence a professional sport, but Merriman is starting small. He’s the owner of NASCAR K&N Pro Series West driver Jesse Iwuji’s Chevrolet, which is sponsored by his clothing line Lights Out.
Supporting one of the sport’s only African-American drivers was Merriman’s first major step toward his ultimate goal. It’s also helped him quickly learn about NASCAR’s inner workings. He tries to get to a race track a couple times a month, and he said he and Iwuji often invite at-risk kids and their families to the tracks to try sparking their interest.
“I’m a big fan of small stepping stones,” Merriman said. “People just want to get in and make the big splash and do big things as soon as they get in. But great things just don’t happen that way – they just don’t. It’s almost impossible to get into a sport like NASCAR that’s been around for ages. …
“I felt there was an opportunity to possibly expand the sport and outreach to demographics that it may not already have right now. I grew up in Prince George’s County (in Maryland) in a predominantly black neighborhood. We would never have the opportunity to go out to a NASCAR track – ever. We had plenty of opportunities to play football and basketball and other sports because that was there, but never had an opportunity to go out to a NASCAR race. To me, that was just a shame because it’s such a great sport.”
As Merriman moves forward, he hopes to expand his work with inner city families to something more official with the help of NASCAR, as well as some of the proceeds from his Lights Out Brand. He envisions starting close to home in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas before branching out across the country.
That goal is far into the future, but he said he expects that as his understanding of the sport’s behind-the-scenes action grows, he can help bridge the gap to NASCAR for future drivers, crew members and fans.
“I can almost guarantee that if the opportunity was there for minority kids to be up close and personal – maybe one day meet some of these drivers, see these cars, see how exciting it is to be at a race track – that you would just open up a whole slew of a fan base that would just love the sport of NASCAR,” Merriman said.
