Meriweather recalls Taylor as friend and mentor

NFL. The shooting death of Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor shook the pro football world this week, and the Patriots were not immune. New England rookie defensive back Brandon Meriweather played with Taylor for two years at the University of Miami, in 2002 and 2003, and ended up following in the footsteps of the Pro Bowl safety.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Taylor passed away early Tuesday, Meriweather recalled his former Hurricane teammate as a mentor who helped him become a better player.

“Sean was a good friend of mine,” Meriweather said quietly while wearing a sweatshirt with Miami’s familiar green and orange “U” logo on the front. “He was the first safety I followed behind. He was one of the great ones to ever come through there. He was a good dude. I’m sorry this happened to him. I want to send my condolences out to his family and everything.

“He helped me with everything. He helped me with taking my game [to another level]. He did everything for me,” he added. “I didn’t know the playbook — he was the one who sat me down and helped me learn the playbook.”

Meriweather and Taylor were the latest in a classic line of safeties from the University of Miami, a group that includes Baltimore’s Ed Reed. Many of those players are bound and determined to change the perception of the University of Miami as a football factory that produces nothing but thugs.

“I think it’s a good program,” Meriweather said of Miami. “Nobody looks at the good players that came out, like Ed Reed, who hasn’t been in any trouble.

“Guys like Andre Johnson and Reggie Wayne, all the good players that came out. Everybody always speaks about how we’re thugs and this and that, but they never say anything about the good people.”

As of yesterday, there were no arrests in Taylor’s death. However, former college teammate Antrel Rolle told reporters yesterday he believed Taylor’s death was not the result of a random act of violence, but someone from Taylor’s past who was angry that the former Washington defensive back had turned his back on his old ways after the birth of his 18-month-old daughter, and, as a result, had suddenly acquired plenty of enemies on the streets of South Florida.

“This was not the first incident,” Rolle told reporters. “They’ve been targeting him for three years now.”

Rolle said many former “friends” had it in for Taylor, who was trying to build a more stable life.

“He really didn’t say too much,” Rolle said, “but I know he lived his life pretty much scared every day of his life when he was down in Miami because those people were targeting him. At least, he’s got peace now.”

Meriweather was asked how he would want people to remember Taylor.

“As a good dude,” he said. “Not as a dude who always was into trouble, not as the dude that everybody tried to make him out to be, which he’s not. Everybody makes mistakes. I just hope that everybody, at the end of the day, everybody realizes what kind of person he really was.”