FeedsNewsmaker of the Year
‘Dean of Discipline’ Greg Carter
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Dedication and love of the game earned Inkster Coach Greg Carter the Journal Newspaper’s Sports Newsmaker of the Year honors for 2006.Every once in a great while a coach comes along with an abundance of charisma, an unmatched work ethic and a general love for the game and players that he or she coaches.
That person makes an immediate impact in the school and community that they are a part of. The individual has expectations and follows through on them.
That someone is named Greg Carter Inkster’s Head Football Coach. His dedication and leadership traits earned him The Journal Sports Newsmaker of the Year for 2006.
Carter managed to do at Inkster last year—only his second year at the school—what most coaches dream about doing their entire careers. He took his team all the way to the state championship finale at Ford Field in November. Inkster lost the game, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a huge accomplishment to get there.
“We had a pretty good team,” Carter said. “We were a little leery of our offensive line before the season because they were so young. We didn’t know if they would be able to protect our running backs and quarterback. But we knew we had a pretty good chance to make it to the finals.”
The offensive line did its job, allowing the backfield to rack up 2,895 yards and the quarterback to throw for 1,346 yards before the finale. The defense did its job, too, holding nine of 13 opponents to single digits with four shutouts. Only Ypsilanti (36—the team’s only regular season loss), Romulus (29), Madison Heights Bishop Foley (13) and Montague (34) scored more than the average six points against the sturdy defense.
Carter made an immediate impact with the team in his first year in 2005. He turned a 1-7 team around to a 9-3 district championship team.
“There was a lot of talent here in Inkster,” said Assistant Coach Mac Jones. “They just needed direction and Greg provided that. I knew he would eventually have an impact but I’m surprised how quick it was. It shows that kids here wanted to win and they bought into what Greg was teaching them.”
Carter’s winning trend started long before he accepted the Inkster job, though. As head coach of St. Martin dePorres he won back-to-back state championships in 1995 and 1996 and a third in 2003. He made it to the finals in 2004 but walked away as the runner up. So far he has racked up a 107-38 record in his 12 years career as a head football coach.
Before that he was a college baseball All-American at Kentucky State University. That led to short stint playing professional minor league baseball with the Detroit Tigers.
He was also a proficient high school quarterback at Detroit Mackenzie in the early ‘70s, according to Jones—who was the head coach at the high school at the time.
“He was an outstanding player and quarterback,” Jones said. “He was as fine a young man as you could find and what ever the business was he was successful in it.”
Everyone knows Carter as the athletic director and football coach (and now the basketball coach) but little is ever said about him as the Dean of Discipline. This affords him the chance to work with individuals outside the arena of sports.
“I just love working with kids in general,” Carter said. “This gives me a chance to work with kids who aren’t student athletes. I like working with them and it gives me a chance to help a lot more kids.”
“Greg has a special quality and is able to impart it on the kids,” Jones added. “He’s taught them discipline and self discipline. He teaches them that there are things that they are responsible for and if they do those things good things will happen be it in football or life.”
Carter still has one year left on his three-year contract with Inkster. He said that when the time comes he hopes he is still a part of the Inkster community.
“The community has really been supportive and I like being here,” he said. “I’m just having fun. I like working with the kids and I just want to be good every year and have a program that people can respect.”
