Assistant coach, defense, NY Giants
Q: You won two national championships in college and played in a Super Bowl, but I wonder if you could sum up what the 1988 Carter season means to you?
A: I think it was the start of who I am. To me, what we went through, put it at the top. I can't say one thing is bigger than the next thing when you come down to that. Because I feel that was just as big as my national championships, and at the time it was just like a Super Bowl.
It helped who I am today.
Q: When you say "the things we went through," are you referring to the grade controversy, going through it week-to-to-week in the playoffs?
A: Yeah, what made it so special, people don't even realize, we couldn't even practice. We might get one day of practice and that's it. It kind of let you know the talent that we had because you need to put some kind of game plan in.
Q: Could you describe your role with the Giants now?
A: What I do is I'm basically an assistant coach, where I help with our linebackers as well, with the defensive coordinator. I go over the film before we play the team that we're going to play. I sit down with him the week before and we go over what I see in my eyes and who I see as the key players, what I feel like what we can do to stop our opponent.
We talk amongst each other and then he makes the final decision. I have my input on the situation.
Q: I also understand you help with scouting and help recruit free agents
A: During the season, it's football. But during the off-season, that's when I switch my hats and go to the other side.
Q: So you are double-training for coaching and management?
A: Yeah, it's very seldom that a player would get the opportunity to do both. They always told me, you have to be on one side or the other side.
But I always believed that there's nothing that's impossible. I deal with both sides and both sides like me.
They know I was the type of player who had been through it. Anything you want to say, I basically went through it, as far as injuries or Pro Bowl, coming in the lowest you can be drafted, so I can talk to players in all kind of fashion.
Q: Where does your family live during the season?
A: I have two girls who are 9 and 10. Jessica, 10, and Jaya is 9. They're still in Dallas. I want them to finish the school out because the school they go to will have you very prepared once you go to junior high school.
When they come up here next year, they'll have their solid foundation. That's how I was when I grew up. I went to a private school through the seventh grade and then after that that's when I went to public school.
Q: Most of the players I have talked to have mentioned that you make it a point to keep up with former teammates, even while splitting time in New York.
A: One thing about it, those guys will always be part of my life. I appreciate them helping us win the state championship. That's something that we all can hold onto. That's a big deal right there.
Q: Most of the players seem to view it the same way you do. But if the title had not been taken away, do you think there would be some kind of 20th anniversary commemoration or reunion. Seems like it is passing pretty quietly.
A: They want it to pass quietly, for all that went on. But you think about it, it's still a state championship. We didn't do anything wrong. If a teacher writes down a 72 and says, Oh, he made a mistake; it should have been a 68 or something like that,' then he's the problem.
Now that I'm a fully grown man, you really look at the situation and say that the teacher is the problem. Because you had last say so. No one came in the room and told him to write that grade. You don't make mistakes like that. If you make mistakes like that, that's something you've got to deal with personally, later on.
He should have been in some major trouble behind that.
It's not like that one player would have stopped us from winning the state championship. Obviously, Gary was a big part of it, but we still could have marched on – with me or without me, also.
They can try to downplay it all they want to, but we all went out there and laid it on the line. If I was another team and I just got beat, I just got beat. I don't think they'll celebrate the hand-me-over state championship.
Q: Before the 2001 Super Bowl, you talked about the fact that you didn't participate in the robberies, but could have been pulled in. Could you refresh me on that story?
A: We all grew up together. I got in trouble previously with the shoplifting at the mall. My mom was very disappointed and I told her I wouldn't get in any more trouble. When that issue came up, I was like, 'Hey, I'm not going to get involved.' It was brought up to me, and me being at the time the guy, the leader.
I'll never forget that. I brushed it off because I wasn't going to get in more trouble, for my mom's sake. When all that went down, not knowing that it was going to be as big as it was . ...
And now I think of, today, that we didn't have the right adults around us at the time, parents, community. You look at it, and if it had been judged fairly, those kids would not have gone to prison and be sentenced to 20 years in a maximum security prison. People who kill people and robbed them do not do that in society today.
As I look at it now, there's no way that people should have sat around and let that happen. They should have done everything they could.
Q: What could have been done differently?
A: Better lawyers would have guaranteed those guys wouldn't have seen prison. I'm not saying they shouldn't have gotten into trouble. Yes, they should have gotten into trouble.
But you should not send kids who didn't have a record to prison with murderers. You do not do that. You think about the issue. That's a maximum security prison with killers and everything else. You're talking about 17 and 18 year olds. It's not like you're dealing with kids who had records.
No one ever had a record, much less a speeding ticket. That's the part I look at now that really pisses me off in hindsight.
Q: At the time, reading the stories, the judge says he wanted to make an example of those offenders, to serve as a deterrent for other kids.
A: You look at a guy like Gary Edwards, a guy like Derric. If they had done things right, stayed healthy and everything else, they would have made the NFL. I've been around and seen guys. They would have made it. But even if they hadn't, they could have been productive guys in college, graduated and helped out in the community more than they are now. They could have been productive members of society instead of starting out behind the eight-ball.
Example? You don't make an example out of kids' lives by destroying them. They had a bright future. You had colleges saying that they would make them report in. You've never seen nothing where you had so many people who were there for them.
It's something that that judge would have to live with himself. I would love to speak with him about that whole issue right now.
Q: What would you say to him?
A: I wonder what his thinking was. Do you make examples out of people coming through all the time? Did you look at it on a fair judging scale? You look at it in fairness. What they did was wrong, I mean dead wrong. You don't pat them on the back, but the punishment did not equal the crime.
Q: If you had not won the title, and had there not been the grading controversy, do you think the robbery sentences would have been as harsh?
A: You hit it right on the nose. That's dead true. It wouldn't have been on the news. Also, I'm trying to recap now, but you should have had different lawyers. It seems like they were put all in the same group. No way in the world you let kids go in one group.
They all didn't go do those things together. People went at different times. Some had other motives. But you put everybody in the same line, when you look at them come in, I don't know how many of them were on the chain, so now it leaves the impression they were all in it together.
I'm quite sure that a lot of people look back, a lot of lawyers today would say there's no way they should have gotten that time.
Q: Can you talk about your friendship with Gary, how you think he has handled everything?
A: He helps out with little league football. And whenever I can help him out, as far as that little league stuff, I do. But when we speak the truth on that issue, it's not like they're walking around bashing people.
I see it through the eyes of an adult now. When I was a child, I saw it another way. Whatever they said, I accepted as a child at that time. I knew nothing else. But as a grown man, I look at it and it's dead wrong. If you look at society today, people are killing are doing dead wrong. I'm asking, why are those people walking around after killing three or four people?
Q: Back to the story about you not taking part in the robberies. I recall that you tried to talk to Coach James about.
A: Me and Coach James were riding out to the DISD building and I said, 'Coach James, I need to talk to you about something. He was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's going on?' Later on, I said, 'Don't worry about it, it's no big deal.'
I was between a rock and a hard place. If I told and they got in trouble, they wouldn't have gone to prison, but they probably wouldn't have spoken to me to this day. But as an adult, I would accept it because I know it was the right thing to do.
That's the only thing that gets me, is that I know I could have done something about it.
Q: Gary and P.K. said one of the things that bothers them most is they'll be in the barber shop or grocery store or mall, they'll hear people talking about Carter and invariably people throw your name in there as having been part of the robberies, or that you were part of them and didn't get caught.
A: People say whatever they want to say, which shows how simple-minded they are. Those are people who should have been using their energy at the time for the kids. People can say what they want to say, but out of all the guys, believe me, I would have been the Sacrificial Lamb they were trying to find.
At the time, people were saying, they were hoping, hoping they could get my name involved in the situation in Dallas. I had a police officer in Dallas tell me, 'They're hoping to get your name involved.' I said, 'I'm not worried about it; I was nowhere where I could even be involved.'
You're talking about the number one player in the nation. So that's more publicity that could have gone around.
Q: Were you questioned about it?
A: No. I'm quite sure they did all the research they could do. But no one came to me about it. There wasn't going to be no camera or no nothing to find my face on any of it.
Q: I did have an interesting conversation with Derric. Have you talked to him much over the years?)
A: Not in a little while.
Years? Yeah.
Q: Did you correspond with him when he was in prison?
A: No, I'm not for sure, I think one time in college a letter was written. Why, what did he say?
Q: He said the public back then didn't know how much friction there was on the team and within the coaching staff concerning which of you two was the better player.
A: It may be something that was in his mind. You've got to realize, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I was the No. 1 player in the nation as a sophomore.
The thing I always told everybody was that he was the No. 1 DB in the nation. I tell people all the time, I was like Michael Jordan and he was like Scottie Pippen. Nothing wrong with that. We won a championship together and there wasn't a DB, I say, that wouldn't have been better than him the pros. He would have come through and been very successful.
And Gary would have played. As I get older, I see guys coming through and the talent level, so I think I know.
Q: So you don't remember the last time you talked to Derric?
A: The last time I talked to Derric was probably four years ago. I saw him back in Dallas. Over at his grandmother's house, before she passed away. I think I passed through there and they were playing dominoes out there that day.
Q: What do you remember about November 10, the day you guys found out Gary was ineligible and you were disqualified from the playoffs?
A: There were TV guys there. One of our guys picked up a rock and acted like he wanted to throw it at them. Coaches were like, 'Man, put that thing down.
Q: Did you know what was going on?
A: No. We were practicing. All the bad news broke out then. I think we were still on the field.
That's when we got the news.
Q: Did you feel like there was an 'us vs. them' mentality)
A: When it first started out, we were just trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe it wasn't us against everybody, but we just had that mentality. It sure seemed like it.
Q: Some guys mentioned that other DISD schools were behind you.
A: There's just a little community where you've got Kimball and SOC and Hutch. When you start getting outside of DISD, you had to go against the big school.
That's what made the whole thing come together. You start looking at our games; you couldn't even get into our games. Now everybody took it upon themselves to say they were pissed off, too. You'd say, 'Why you pissed off?' They'd say, they're doing us wrong, too.
