Staff writer
Tyler Mermis seems to have the right temperament for managing baseball. Think Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, and Terry Francona not Ozzie Guillen: even keeled, professional, and confident.
His two jobs — baseball coach and Marion Police sergeant — at least in their stereotypical personifications, seem to be at odds. While a cool head is often an asset in either place, he doesn’t exude muscle-bound, tough guy like some cops.
He is, however, persistent. He has collected enough money, through various sources, to install a 7-by-14-foot batting cage in the Marion Middle School gym. The indoor cage will be used by all high school spring sport athletes — including softball and golf — out of season and when the weather does not cooperate in the spring.
“When the weather is cruddy, they can come over here and use the cage,” Mermis said. “A lot of kids love the game of baseball.”
The cage is part philanthropic project and part selfish pursuit of success for Mermis; he believes that he might have a baseball team that can contend for a state championship this year, but definitely within the next four years. Mermis coached Marion’s Senior Babe Ruth baseball team this summer — a team that all returned to MHS this year. That team went to the state tournament after winning the district five competition.
“They were playing teams that had college kids on them, and we didn’t lose to anybody,” Mermis said. “A lot of kids have come up to me and said that they are excited about the spring sports season.”
This year will be Mermis’ first in the Warrior dugout, but he said his team will be embodied by an aggressive style: the team will steal bases, will hit and run, will run suicide squeezes, and will go all out to score runs.
Some sports fans may recall that the high school team struggled last year, but Mermis worked hard in the summer to improve the team’s attitude and overall confidence. He remembered a point early on in the Babe Ruth season when the team started to lose and the attitude of the team started a downward spiral.
Mermis changed around his lineup, mainly playing younger players more, and the attitude of the team changed. Mermis said it is his main job as a manager to work on the team’s confidence and keep them properly motivated.
“You do what they need to believe in themselves,” Mermis said.
Mermis learned some of his motivational techniques — how to tear a person down and build them back up — in the Marines.
Although he played college baseball at Brown Mackey, Mermis actually passed on a division one baseball career to join the Marines in 1994.
In the Marines, Mermis traveled to Kuwait, Iraq, and Somalia where he saw some combat. He specialized in close quarter, urbanized warfare, rapelling from helicopters to the top of buildings and then clearing them from the top down.
Mermis spent four years in the military, and then returned to Kansas. He then decided between continuing his military career or trying to go into a new profession. When his first wife became pregnant with his son, Blaine, and the events of Sept. 11, 2001 occurred, he chose to leave the military but do the next best thing: law enforcement.
Mermis started working at the Barton County Jail and then moved to the Great Bend Police Department. He then became a canine handler for Stafford County.
Mermis was employed by the Kinsley Police Department where he met his current wife Melissa. Soon he found out about the opening in Marion and took the job. He is a sergeant now, but he is moving up to assistant chief of police soon.
Mermis lives with Melissa in Marion. His three children — Blaine, Bryce, and Brynn — live with his former wife in Kinsley.