I’ve heard of team building exercises, but then one is extremely different.
In a story for the Players Tribune, former Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman recounts a story of the time he encountered former Chargers center Nick Hardwick, doing the freest form of squats you could ever imagine.
It’s the middle of a game week, and we’re at the Chargers facility early for team meetings. Our defensive meeting ends early, so I decide to go hit the gym for a few minutes.
I’m walking to the gym, and it’s pretty much a ghost town. It’s about 8 a.m., and most of the guys are still in other meetings. I walk past the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look into the gym, and just like the rest of the facility, it’s pretty much empty.
Except for one guy: our then-300-pound center, Nick Hardwick.
And he’s literally butt-ass naked, wearing nothing but tennis shoes and his tattoos, doing squats.
I freakin’ lose it. I’m literally on all fours laughing, crying so hard I can barely stand up. I never even make it into the weight room. I just run to tell the other guys, ‘Yo, go check out your boy Nick.’
Hardwick for his part, co-signed the interaction.
I found nudity was usually a really great way to break the ice. Not even break the ice, but break the monotony of the day and the season. During the season, the weeks just get so long.
In this instance — I think it was in between meetings or something — I walked by the weight room and thought, I’m just gonna go in here and get naked. I went in and stripped my clothes, like it was the natural thing to do, and started squatting as guys were passing through the weight room. The only thing I was wearing were my tennis shoes because you gotta squat with shoes on, right?
The two were teammates for five-years, during some of Merriman’s best years.
