Alabama coach still wrestling with murder of age 25 son as case remains unsolved
This is supposed to be the quiet time of the year for college football coaches.
Or at least as quiet as being an assistant on Nick Saban’s staff can be.
But for Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, quiet times are usually spent thinking about his son Meiko, who was murdered in early September of last year.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich tells the story of how Meiko’s spirit lives on, even while police have yet to find his killer.
Following a season-opening win against Florida State, the Locksleys had dinner with other coaches at Saban’s house, then went home. Around 3 a.m., they were awoken by the knocking on their door.
It was three officers from the University of Alabama Police Department.
Locksley recalls what he told the officers.
“Please don’t tell me my son is dead,” he said.
That set off his wife, Kia.
“I got really pissed at him,” she remembers. “Why would you say something like that? They hadn’t said anything but, ‘Are you Michael Locksley?’ I was yelling at him, ‘Don’t say things like that!’ They confirmed it and I didn’t want to believe it.”
Meiko Locksley, 25, had been shot and killed at 10 p.m. in Columbia, Maryland, blocks away from his home.
Police in Howard County think the killing might have resulted from a drug-related robbery, according to The Baltimore Sun. They said they had no viable leads regarding a suspect, but they don’t believe the shooting was random.
During his senior year at the school, Meiko was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
The disease could be controlled by medication, but the Locksleys always had their son in their thoughts.
“We worried a lot,” Mike said. “He really went from being a normal, football-playing 21-year-old to struggling with understanding reality from myth. And when he was on his medication, he was almost who we knew him to become. And so we fought those demons of having to battle through the mental health part, which we did for two, three years.”
For a coach of the (eventual) national champions of college football, the struggle was not only to understand the issue of mental health but also to help Meiko comprehend what was happening.
“That’s the part with mental health issues, they’re not always in control of what they do, what they say, how they say it,” Mike Locksley said.
And it’s not as simple as making sure his team runs the right play on the field.
“But you know, some of it with us as parents, you can do so much,” he said. “We felt like we had turned a corner with him because I think he really started to understand finally that he was a little different because of the mental health issues.”
Without any eyewitnesses to the shooting, this may very well be a case that never gets solved.
Mike Locksley only has one question.
“I just want to know why,” he said.
Kia added, “Whenever I find myself asking why, I try to redirect and be grateful for the 25 years I was given instead of what was taken, because that’s the only way I can go on.”
After Meiko’s funeral, Mike went back to his football team.
In January, the entire Locksley family was together for the first time minus Meiko for the national championship game against Georgia.
But his spirit still had a way of contributing to what was his dad’s finest moment in sports.
Prior to kickoff, defensive end Tony Brown wrote Meiko’s name on his glove.
Sure enough, he made a critical interception using that hand in the first quarter.
“That really was crazy to me when I saw it,” Brown said. “It was a special little moment in that the reason I did that was to try to support his son and then I made a game-changing play in that game with the glove on. On top of that, his son’s premonition came to fruition, and I was a part of that in a big way. That’s pretty intense.”
Winning the title, of course, didn’t bring Meiko back, but for the Locksley family, the championship meant more than just the final score.
“My family and everybody was there to get to enjoy it, and finally win,” Mike told ESPN. “Because we lost a lot. And we finally won.”
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