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Bucs' Carter Just Keeps Going To Work

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 12, 2008

He'll sit on his bed some mornings. It's dark out. For an instant, he'll resist the idea of an early workout. Then he'll picture his dad, going to his job whether he was sick or just bone tired, or his mom, rest her soul, who could make thunder clouds smile. He'll think about wife Shima and 8-year-old son Zion. He'll think of what he has built in 14 NFL seasons.

"You think about what you want to leave behind," Kevin Carter said.

So he goes to work.

Few people have gone to work like Kevin Carter. Like teammate Derrick Brooks, Carter has played in 217 consecutive games, the longest active streak for defensive players. Carter hasn't missed a game in his career. Then there's the quality: Pro Bowls, a Super Bowl ring, 102.5 sacks. The Bucs let Carter go shopping after last season, and he did. But he returned to finish the story. He was supposed to play left defensive end just long enough for Greg White to take over. It hasn't happened.

Kevin Carter, 35, going to work.

It's the stuff of Canton.

We haven't gotten to off the field - the charitable guy, the family guy, the thinker. If the Hall of Fame was a general election, Carter would win in a landslide. It matters to him, too. Only he isn't much for stump speeches.

"I don't make that splash for the national media," Carter said. "I don't have a rehearsed, signature sack celebration. I tried one at different times, but it just wasn't me."

This is him:

"This year, I wanted people to say, 'Man, this guy Kevin Carter, still ...' Maybe it's just part of my way, my personality, the consistency - like water. Water is one of the strongest forces in nature. It carves through rock, it carves through solid earth. Nothing's more powerful than water."

Water always has a source.

Carter stood at his locker and thought about growing up in Tallahassee, thinking of the man who attends his games, home and away. Louis Carter worked 32 years for UPS, but found time to be head deacon at church and, of course, for his wife and two sons.

"I'd get up in the morning and I'd hear my dad praying, top of his lungs, for me and my brother," Carter said. "Praying for us, praying for our life's path, praying for our decisions, just praying for our lives.

"My dad taught me the value of hard work. My dad taught me the value of process. My dad taught me the value of getting up every day and attacking the day, laboring for what you want, not the short term, but the consistency."

Carter thought of his mom, Virginia, who died five years ago.

"My mom was a saint."

Virginia was an accountant. She handled Kevin's money when he first became a pro. And she was a point of light for everyone she met. A lifetime of health problems, dialysis three days a week near the end, didn't stop her glow.

"I always wanted, when my name got called, for people to say, 'Man, that guy was a beast for his entire career. From the day he came in the league until the day he left, he was the same,'" Virginia's son said.

Kevin Carter, still. A legacy is a river that never ends.

Carter stopped. His eyes filled. His voice broke.

"That I have an 8-year-old son ... I'm proud of my legacy, my consistency, what I can leave him. ... A boy can't learn to be a man unless he sees a man."

Zion is going to be something.

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