Making a mountain along the defensive line

Rick Devereux

Corona del Mar High senior Taylor Meehan is getting used to making

transitions from spacious environments to more crowded surroundings.

The 18-year old Meehan moved from Park City, Utah, to Balboa

Island last year and switched from inside linebacker on the football

team to defensive end in the fourth week of the season following

injuries to the regular starter on the defensive line.

“The biggest difference [between Utah and California] is my

parents had a two-acre lot in Utah,” Meehan said. “There was nobody

around us. Here, you look out your window and a neighbor is right

there. Their house is literally a stone’s throw away. It’s too close

for my tastes.”

Meehan moved to a more confined area on the football field, as

well. As the defensive end, he was in on three sacks and finished

with three tackles for a loss in CdM’s 42-14 Pacific Coast League

victory over University Nov. 4. He also inflicted two big hits on

kickoff coverage and was a member of the kickoff return team to earn

Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week honors.

“[How you react to the offense] is totally different as an inside

linebacker compared to an end,” Meehan said. “As a linebacker, you’re

able to see the play develop, the [offensive] line go to their blocks

and where the running backs are supposed to go. At defensive end,

it’s almost like playing with your eyes closed. You just have to

react and feel where the pressure is coming from. You can see the big

picture at linebacker.”

Meehan said playing linebacker is similar to living in Utah in

those two respects -- open space and seeing the big picture.

But don’t think Meehan doesn’t enjoy both playing defensive end

and living in Southern California.

Meehan said he enjoys playing on the defensive line because that

is one of the few positions where players hit every play. And despite

moving away from his friends in Utah, Meehan said he has never been

happier.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I was going

to stay [in California] or not. The coaches [at Corona del Mar] took

me under their wing. They made a big enough impact on my life for me

to give up my friends and life in Utah.”

Meehan had to live by himself over the summer at his parents’

house on Balboa Island and had to work up to 12-hour shifts at a

local juice bar in order to support himself. He said the CdM coaching

staff called him daily to make sure everything was fine and took him

to the hospital when he got sick.

He said making friends with his classmates was a little more

difficult.

“I was totally different than anything these Corona del Mar and

California people had ever seen,” Meehan said.

He also knew the football team was dominated by seniors who had

played together since grade school. Making an impression with his new

teammates was not going to be easy.

“To be honest, I was scared,” Meehan said. “In Utah, I was good.

There were only a handful of guys that could run a [40-yard dash]

under five seconds. Here, more than half the team runs under five

seconds. Everything moves faster down here.”

Meehan is no slouch when it comes to moving fast.

At 12 years old, he was the youngest person selected to the Park

City Ski Team.

Meehan has been skiing since he was 1, before he could walk. There

was talk about skiing in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Meehan said he would have had to drop out of school and train

full-time, a sacrifice he did not want to make.

He has since given up racing, but skiing is still part of his

life. He won the King of the Wasatch competition last year in free

skiing. He received an invitation to try to earn a spot in the

X-Games, but his family moved to California.

“I miss the mountains every day,” he said. “With skiing, I’m able

to get away from people. Football is like a sanctuary for me, also.

If you’re having a bad day, you can go out and hit someone. It’s

almost therapeutic. I don’t have the most level head anyway.”

Meehan has earned the nickname “Meathead” around campus for his

readiness to head-butt inanimate objects.

“It’s such a typical meathead thing to do,” Meehan said. “When I

sit at school, I’m just thinking about football all the time. I get

butterflies the day before a game. There is nowhere I’d rather be on

Friday than under the lights.”

His attitude has not gone unnoticed.

“I think he has great enthusiasm and really loves to play the game

of football,” Coach Dick Freeman said. “He’s undersized [as a

defensive end], but he works so hard. He’s one of the hardest workers

on this team.”

Meehan plans to go back to Utah once this year is over and try out

for the University of Utah football team.

“I just received my acceptance letter from the university,” he

said. “If I don’t make it as a walk-on, I’ll lift hard and try again

next year.”