HIS name is everywhere in the University of Hawaii record book, but he isn't remembered for the numbers. Michael Carter made
all the right movesThe football portrait of Michael Carter is splashed with passion and dedication - and most of all toughness.
It has been more than four years since Carter led the Rainbows to their greatest season, an 11-2 team that captured the heart of Hawaii and finished with a big upset of Illinois in the Holiday Bowl.
Actually, Carter hasn't hung up his cleats.
He played in the Honolulu Touch Tackle League this year and his team - the Street-Style Rottweilers - will take on defending champion Waianae for the championship of the Jeep Eagle Aloha Bowl Touch Tackle Championship.
The showdown is set for Sunday at 8:15 a.m. And the site, Aloha Stadium, is certainly a familiar one for Carter.
But don't look for the former UH quarterback to be at his old position.
"I started out playing quarterback, but I threw too many interceptions," he said with a laugh yesterday. "Now I play defensive back and I like it even better.
"I get to deliver the blows instead of receiving them."
Carter is playing with former Rainbows Ollie Myrick, Kim McCloud, Kenny Harper and Brian Gordon - who is now the signal-caller.
"Our team is a little different - it's a kind of street ball," Carter said. "But we have a lot of fun."
The Long Beach, Calif., native is second behind Garrett Gabriel on the all-time Hawaii list for career offense.
Carter rushed for 2,528 yards and passed for 3,504 in 45 games, an incredible net of 6,032 yards or 181.8 per game.
THE amazing part is that he survived. As an option quarterback who only stood 5-foot-10, Carter took a pounding on every play, usually by someone twice his size.
In 1991, he played most of the schedule with cracked ribs, which wasn't revealed until the near-upset of Notre Dame in the final game of the season. Now that's tough.
Carter took a job as an assistant coach at UH after he graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1994.
But now he is working as a salesman for Midweek Magazine and has a music studio.
"I've had some opportunities to coach, but you can't pay me enough to leave the islands," he said. "And I have a hard time explaining the game to some of the young people nowadays.
"A lot of the football players today just don't have the dedication that it takes to be the best player that you can be - and to win."
CARTER said he likes Fred vonAppen and the new coaching staff. But he warns that they will need the administration's support.
"The Prop 48 players were a key to us winning in 1992," he said. "And they all graduated, so it shows that if you give people a chance, they can do well in college."
Carter said he initially came to the University of Hawaii with a single purpose: to play football.
"As I matured, I understood how important it is to get your degree," he said. "But with football, I practiced it, I studied it and I played as hard as I could.
"It's the game that I love and care about so much. And I have always treated it with the respect it deserves."
On Sunday, the biggest and best college football players in the nation will square off under two famous coaches in the Hooters Hula Bowl. Even the Heisman Trophy winner will be there. Many will go on to the fame and riches of the NFL.
But if you want to see the toughest college football player that I have ever seen, the 5-foot-10 quarterback who ran the option - and got up to run it again and again - you better get to Aloha Stadium early.
His name is Michael Carter.