Tyrone Carter’s eyes twinkled in the brilliant sunshine of a Minnesota summer morning. He has tuned in to his own Classic Sports Network, surfing the memories of his days as a pee-wee football player.
Click: In 1982, because of an uncle’s clout, the 6-year-old Carter is allowed to play in a league for 7-year-olds.
Click: Carter is the smallest player on the team, but his coaches notice that when he hits, kids go down.
Click: Carter is inserted at nose tackle.
“The first couple games, I was just getting beat on,” said Carter, a 23-year-old senior from Pompano Beach, Fla. “But then I got smart and I started using my quickness. One time the center was at least a foot taller than me. As soon as he hiked the ball, I ran under his legs and hit the runner almost before he got the ball.”
Carter has sprouted all the way up to 5 feet 9 inches and 188 pounds. That makes him one of the smaller players on the Minnesota roster. But he is perhaps the biggest reason the Golden Gophers believe this will be the year they end the Big Ten’s longest bowl drought. Minnesota hasn’t appeared in the postseason since 1986.
Carter, a strong safety, was named first team All-Big Ten a year ago and this year is a candidate for several national awards. Penn State linebacker LaVar Arrington has received more preseason hype, but Big Ten coaches privately say Carter is the hardest defender to counter in the league.
“It’s hard to assign a blocker to a secondary guy,” Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez said. “I’ve never seen a secondary guy make as many hits as he does.”
It’s interesting that a defender was the choicest nugget of talent left by the Gophers’ previous coach, Jim Wacker, who stressed offensive football. But therein lies another tale of Carter’s past.
Carter wanted to play for one of the Sunshine State’s powerhouses. But his plans changed once his grandmother, Mamie, connected with the bubbly Wacker during a recruiting visit. Mamie, who had raised Carter along with 11 of her own children, ordered her grandson to visit the Twin Cities.
“I never heard of the University of Minnesota,” Carter said. “It’s January. It’s below zero. I’m looking around here and saying, `Get me out of here.’
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“I went home and I’m like, `Grandma, that place was just too cold,’ ” Carter said. “She said, `Son, that’s why you’re going to go. You need to be there.’ Being respectful, I said, `Yes, ma’am.’ I wonder if the Lord had given her a sign.”
Mamie died two years ago, but Carter has literally burned her memory into his being. His left bicep features a tattoo with her name, the date of her death and a pair of hands clasped in prayer.
“Just watching her raising 11 kids, it was hard on her,” Carter said. “Being around a woman like that, a woman that strong, you think, `I’m not going to let her down.’ She taught me all the values I have.”
One of those values was a sense of duty to his community. Based on the assumption that he’s going to sign a professional football contract next year, Carter recently pledged $50,000 to the building fund of the Church of the Living God Ministry, a Pentacostal congregation in Pompano Beach, as well as another $50,000 for operations.
Mamie exerted her influence when Carter fathered a son, Tyrone Jr., in high school.
“She made me get two jobs to support him,” Carter said. “I didn’t go out much.”
Carter said 5-year-old Tyrone Jr. already has the look of a football star: “He wants to be a running back. He doesn’t like to hit. He likes to fake guys out.”
Tyrone Jr. didn’t inherit that trait from his dad. Carter is a ferocious tackler.
“The guy makes plays all over the field,” said Ohio University offensive coordinator Troy Calhoun, whose Bobcats open the season Sept. 4 at the Metrodome. “A really tough, disciplined, enthusiastic football player.”
Carter is more than a hitter. He’s the only player in major-college football history to return two fumbles for touchdowns in the same game. Carter did it against Syracuse in 1996, carrying fumbles 63 and 20 yards for scores in leading the Gophers to an upset.
Carter also returns kicks and serves on the kickoff coverage unit. His talents are so diverse that head coach Glen Mason has toyed with inserting Carter at fullback in goal-line situations.
“When he runs into guys, they usually go backward,” Mason said.
Carter struts the fine line between cockiness and confidence. Opposing fans hate it when he bounds up from a hit, his fist pumping, but he has a softer side that isn’t apparent from the stands.
Consider his reaction to a devastating tackle he made against Penn State fullback Aaron Harris two years ago in Beaver Stadium–a hit that left Harris with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Harris since has returned to action. But of the 384 tackles Carter has made in college, this one might have hurt him the most.
“I wish I had that play over again,” said Carter, who has talked to Harris about it. “For him to go down like that, it touched me.”
Those aren’t the words of a headhunter. But Carter often defies stereotyping. At a time when many big-name athletes reject being portrayed as role models, he hopes he can provide an example.
“All the negatives–if you grow up in the inner city, you have to be a gangbanger or sell drugs–I want to show kids there’s more to life than that,” Carter said. “Younger guys can look at me and say, `That guy did it; I can definitely do it. Don’t quit just because the odds are against you.”