Ken Carter

Ken Carter was born on the first day of 1959 (January 1st) in Fernwood, Mississippi, but quickly moved to Richmond, California at a young age. Fast-forward a little bit into his life, he would then attend Richmond High. Growing up, his family and community were always close together even though he had seven sisters and one brother. They were there for each other all the time. Then, about twenty-five years later, he would return to Richmond High to coach their basketball team and that would be a major part of his life, besides having his own child, Damien Carter.

Ken Carter (http://heightweighnetworth.com/ken-carter/ (Unknown))

During the 1999 season when Coach Carter was (well of course) coaching, his team was undefeated with thirteen games into the season with a philosophy of: "If you get one percent better each day, within one hundred days you'll be one hundred percent better."  But then things started to happen. Games were cancelled, practices were cancelled, the gym was locked out - everything - and all of this because the students weren't getting good enough grades. A sophomore on their team (Duane Harley) quoted that, "It's not guaranteed that you're going to make it in the basketball business, but if you've got good grades, you've got something to fall back on." After people understood what he actually did, they started to praise Carter for showing the kids the proper way in life.

Carter is now recognized as a person who taught kids that school came before sports and it changed their lives and impacted the community greatly because of "The Lockout". He still coaches but is also a motivational speaker. With the words of wisdom he bestowed on those kids, no wonder why he would make a great vocational speaker. Ken also has others jobs such as business, education activist, and an entrepreneur. Besides all of this great stuff he has done, he has also gotten multiple awards which are: 2001 San Francisco Bay Area Entrepreneur of the Year, NAACP Impact Citizen of the Year, and the California Unsung Heroes Award.

Ken Carter (http://www.gothamartists.com/coach_ken_carter.html (Unknown))

When I was first looking at this guy I didn't really ever hear of him, but I researched about all the great things he has done and he kind of reminded me of my parents. My parents would rather me have a better education than have a basketball career and that is what Ken Carter taught his student-athletes as well. I am also a basketball enthusiast as I play it myself and I really wanted to do something with basketball and then I saw that he impacted kids. That's when I realized I wanted to choose him as my hero. Even though this person didn't save lives or something like that he sure impacted kids through generations. Who else has heard of a coach locking his kids out of gym because of their grades? No one! Ken Carter still impacts lives today as adults even remember "The Lockout".

One last thing: if I could sum up Ken Carter is one word - it would be influential. I now understand that my parents weren't crazy about that whole grades before sports thing because I was really looking for a career in sports, but Coach Carter showed me even more reasons why grades come before sports, so. I thank him for that.