Tyrone boys\u2019 basketball coach Mike Harris summed everything up in one sentence Sunday night.
\n\u201cTyler would have rather won the game than scored his 1,000th point.\u201d
\nA true statement about the 6-1, 175 pound guard who became the sixth person in the history of Tyrone basketball to surpass the 1,000-point plateau.
\n\u201cTyler is a natural born leader,\u201d said Harris. \u201cYou see it in football, basketball and baseball. He has been a leader throughout his sports career. He is the type of a kid that wants to win so bad, he would score less or do whatever it takes to win.\u201d
\n\u201cScoring 1,000 points is one of the biggest individual achievements in high school basketball,\u201d said Mertiff. \u201cReaching it now is really special.\u201d
\nOne of the things Harris notes is Mertiff\u2019s knowledge of the game.
\n\u201cSometimes Tyler sees things that the coaches don\u2019t and gives us suggestions,\u201d said Harris. \u201cIt isn\u2019t a power struggle. He tells us what he sees and does what we ask of him.\u201d
\nMany athletes who are \u201cstars\u201d turn into prima donnas. Harris says Mertiff is far from that.
\n\u201cHe always talks with his teammates on the floor and he never talks down to them,\u201d Harris added. \u201cHe treats every teammate the same. He doesn\u2019t act like he is better than anyone and he makes sacrifices to make his teammates better.\u201d
\nIf there is one thing you see out of Mertiff is that he gives the maximum effort for every minute he is on the court or field.
\n\u201cTyler has a mental toughness that allows him to give 110 percent on the floor,\u201d said Harris. \u201cHe practices like he plays in games and that gives you the ability to turn it up and get to that next level. That kind of work ethic makes good players great.\u201d
\nFans of Tyrone athletics have had many opportunities to see Mertiff display his athletic prowess over the past four years. What many don\u2019t get to see is Mertiff off the field.
\nHe coaches YMCA basketball teams in the third and fourth grade leagues and is an honor student at Tyrone High School.
\n\u201cThe kids look up to him,\u201d said John Hertzler, who coaches with Mertiff at the YMCA. \u201cMost of the coaches are parents, but these kids are working with a star athlete. They listen to him because many of the kids go and watch him play and see that he knows what he is talking about.\u201d
\nHertzler is very impressed with the way Mertiff is around the kids.
\n\u201cHe knows more about most sports than many of the people coaching youth sports in town,\u201d said Hertzler. \u201cHow many 17-year-olds give up their Friday nights to coach children. We had a game Sunday afternoon and he was there right before he had a big game on Sunday night. That tells you how special this kid is.\u201d
\nTwo kids who play for Hertzler and Mertiff are Denver and Charlie Burket from Alexandria. They made the trip to see Mertiff eclipse the millennium scoring mark.
\n\u201cI love seeing the kids do well,\u201d said Mertiff. \u201cI\u2019d like to see them do what I get to do at the varsity level. Everything I learned, I am trying to pass back to the kids.\u201d
\nWhen asked if he would rather win a game playing or coaching, Mertiff said \u201ccoaching my YMCA team.\u201d
\n\u201cI love working with the kids. Off the court or on the court, what I try to do down at the YMCA with the kids I feel is better than any individual achievement that I have accomplished.\u201d
\nBy the way, the elementary team coached by Hertzler and Mertiff is undefeated.
\nMertiff was quick to praise Eric Castorina and Dave Panasiti after reaching the milestone.
\n\u201cDave brought me up to the freshman team as a seventh grader and it made me a better player,\u201d said Mertiff. \u201cHe taught me a lot of what I know about basketball. He took extra time to work with me and he helped make me a better player and teammate.
\nI knew Eric (Castorina) was good, but I learned what made him good as a freshman,\u201d Mertiff said. \u201cI saw how bad he wanted to win. He led our team to a District VI Championship and I wanted to step into his role when he graduated. I wanted his number, I wanted to step into his shoes and I want to match what he did and win a District title.\u201d
\nNot only is Mertiff a standout on the basketball court, he set single season and career passing records at Tyrone this past football season. As a junior, Mertiff lettered in four sports, football, basketball, baseball and track.
\nTyler plans to major in elementary education and hopes to coach after graduating college.
\nHe is being recruited for both football and basketball.
\nThere are many things about Tyler Mertiff that the Tyrone community doesn\u2019t see. They don\u2019t see the way he treats the kids in learning support classes. They don\u2019t see how he works with the kids at the YMCA. For a 17-year-old kid, Tyler Mertiff is one special person and is a great role model for kids in our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyrone boys\u2019 basketball coach Mike Harris summed everything up in one sentence Sunday night. \u201cTyler would have rather won the game than scored his 1,000th point.\u201d A true statement about the 6-1, 175 pound guard who became the sixth person in the history of Tyrone basketball to surpass the 1,000-point plateau. \u201cTyler is a natural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}