Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Merriman graduated from its Amphitheater High School in 1979. He played college football at Idaho in the Big Sky Conference, recruited by head coach Jerry Davitch, a former Arizona Wildcat lineman and high school head coach in Tucson. Merriman had planned on playing at Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, also in the Big Sky, but a coaching change there altered his future further northward.
