THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090736
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL WHITE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
When Jerry Carter came to Deep Creek four years ago, he installed a Wing-T offense that gets everyone involved, can work anywhere and sometimes leaves people wondering from which direction it came.
That description, in a lot of ways, fits Carter himself.
In both cases, the style is effective. After a 10-0 regular season and three consecutive playoff victories, the Hornets will take their Wing-T offense into the Group AAA Division 5 state final Saturday against Patrick Henry-Ashland.
The game will also mark the crowning achievement for Carter, who will cap his 25th year in coaching with his first appearance in a state final.
Carter, whose coaching abilities are matched only by his disarming, colorful personality, often comes off as something of an enigma. He is a master of spinning convoluted yarns with such a straight face it's not always easy to tell where fact ends and fiction begins.
His age? ``Somewhere between 45 and 52,'' Carter replies in his folksy Southern drawl, a legacy of his upbringing in Wilson, N.C.
``I don't remember much of what happened until I was about 5, so I'm not sure how old I am.''
On how someone who starred in baseball and basketball in high school wound up being a football coach: ``I was teaching at John Yeates and they needed a JV coach. Well, I didn't know much about football, so I read this book. . .
And on what he uses to get the Hornets ready each week: ``Hypnosis.''
There's nothing fictional about Carter's coaching credentials, however. Carter started as a junior varsity coach at the old John Yeates High in Suffolk in 1969. Three years later, he joined the staff at Western Branch, where he stayed for six years.
In his first varsity head coaching job, Carter took over a Laurel Park team that hadn't finished over .500 in eight years and led the Group AA school in Martinsville, Va., to three consecutive winning seasons, highlighted by a 10-1 campaign in 1981.
Carter then moved on to Varina High in Richmond and led the Wildcats to a 50-27-3 mark in eight seasons, including a 10-1 campaign in 1988 which earned him Virginia Coach of the Year honors from The Associated Press.
But by the end of his stint at Varina, Carter was definitely ready to move on. He said he had eight different coaching staffs in his eight years at the school. One year, he made do with just two assistants and a junior varsity coach ``who, and I'm not making this up, wore eyeliner and Cover Girl face makeup.''
With so much instability within his coaching ranks, Carter's Varina teams struggled in his later years there. But it was during this time that he stumbled upon what has become his coaching signature - the Wing-T.
``I used to run the I-formation, but then I ran out of tailbacks,'' Carter said. ``But the thing about the Wing-T is, I used to think only the people up North used it. I didn't want to run no Yankee offense. No self-respecting Southern guy would run the Wing-T.''
Eventually, however, Carter swallowed his pride and began orchestrating the misdirection-based offense, in which one fullback and a wingback at each end of the formation employ a series of counters and reverses to confuse defenses.
Varina didn't lose a game that season until the playoffs.
But the newfound success didn't diminish Carter's desire to move on. He didn't hesitate when old friend Nat Hardee, the Deep Creek principal, came calling, job offer in hand.
``I really liked the idea of finishing my career with someone I liked, a total principal,'' Carter said. ``Basically, I came to Deep Creek to work with Nat Hardee.''
That loyalty has gone both ways. Not long after he arrived at Deep Creek, Hardee toyed with, then rejected, the idea of early retirement.
``The first question he asked me before coming here was, `How long are you going to be there?' '' Hardee said. ``I told them five years. One of the primary reasons I didn't retire was because I had promised the coach.''
During Carter's first season with the Hornets, in 1990, he was just the offensive coordinator. But with his patented Wing-T in full effect, the Hornets offense underwent a dramatic transformation. Deep Creek's rushing yardage soared from an average of 74.3 yards per game in 1989 to an area-best 232.0. Total yardage improved from 138.7 to 284.5. And scoring rose from 12.9 to 27.5. Deep Creek went unbeaten during the regular season before losing to Warwick in the first round of the Eastern Region playoffs.
Carter was promoted to head coach the following year, when Jim Garrett moved up to athletic director. The Hornets have gone 31-12 since, including Carter's 100th career coaching victory in the Eastern Region semifinals against Phoebus.
``He's a real student of the game,'' said Western Branch coach Lew Johnston, who coached with Carter when both were Bruins assistants in the mid-1970s. ``Very intelligent, and very intense.''
The words intelligence and intensity come up often when fellow coaches are asked about Carter. His players add another word - unpredictable.
``You never know what he's going to do,'' receiver Kendall Watson said. ``When you think he's going to be mean, he's nice. You think he's going to be nice, he's mean.''
``He's funny, but he's serious too,'' running back/defensive back Dee Harrell added. ``He'll crack a joke or two during practice, but when it gets time for a game, he gets real serious.''
Carter admits to becoming more and more testy as a game approaches, to the point where during the game he's snapping at anything that moves.
Why in the heck can't we block? What's that guy doing over there? Why do we do that?
``I used to try to be calm, but inside I was churning away,'' Carter said. ``Now, if there's something on my mind, I just say it and let (the assistant coaches) deal with it.
``It's funny, because I'm calm at halftime. I don't rant and rave then. I save that for the game.''
Still, the Carter style is effective. His coaches tolerate his outbursts. The players gain inspiration. And the Hornets continue to roll.
That Carter has been effective this season is particularly impressive, since he's been coaching in constant pain. On Monday, Carter will undergo a back operation, his second since a car accident two years ago.
But while this would be the perfect time for Carter to take a bow - and actually, he did take a mock curtain call toward the E.C. Glass crowd after Deep Creek's state semifinal victory Saturday - he wants little credit for what this year's team has done.
``Because of my physical condition, I've had to rely more than usual on the assistants,'' Carter said. ``Each coach has his responsibility. John Dukes handles the defense, Jamie Fraser works with the defensive and offensive lines, David Cox takes the running backs and defensive backs. Jeff Beard's got the tight ends and defensive ends, and (junior varsity coaches) Perez Gatling and Todd Revell help out, too.
``It's the best total staff I've ever had. Each coach has his responsibility. I just blend it all together.''
Indeed, Carter, who remains his own offensive coordinator, said organization is one of his strong suits, along with an innate ability to get kids to do more than they thought possible. And while a victory Saturday would represent the ultimate achievement for Deep Creek, Carter said he takes his greatest pride in the fact that seven of his former assistants have gone on to become head coaches.
``It just makes me feel that somewhere along the way, something must have been OK,'' he said.
Monday's surgery will keep Carter, a guidance counselor at Deep Creek, out of school for approximately six weeks. But it appears it'll take more than a nagging pain in the back to keep Carter off the Deep Creek sidelines next season.
``My assistants and I used to think of ourselves as a traveling circus, going from Martinsville to Richmond and now Chesapeake,'' said Carter, who is divorced and has one adult daughter, who lives in Virginia Beach. ``But this is the last stop. They're either going to fire me or plant me right here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by D. Kevin Elliott, Staff
In four seasons as Deep Creek head coach, Jerry Carter has led the
Hornets to a 31-12 record
by CNB