By Dick Patrick, USA TODAY
As a part-time track athlete, Xavier Carter produced national youth championships, Florida state high school titles in the 100, 200 and 400 meters, and NCAA history at LSU.
He stopped playing basketball after high school, but continued with football for two more years as a wide receiver. Now that he has dropped football, gone pro full time in track and recorded the second-fastest 200 time in history, the sprinting world is at full throat about his potential.
Next up are meets Tuesday and Thursday in Europe.
Carter, 20, started the buzz in early June at the NCAA championships in Sacramento. He won the 100 and 400, an unprecedented double made more impressive because the 400 final was held 30 minutes after the 100 final.
“Honestly, there were a lot of coaches who thought we were complete idiots” for trying the double, says LSU coach Dennis Shaver, who still trains Carter.
Carter also ran on the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relays, matching Jesse Owens’ record of four wins in the meet (Owens did it in 1935 and '36 for Ohio State).
Ato Boldon, a TV commentator and Olympic sprint medalist, talked with Carter about the accomplishment’s meaning.
“I told him I thought his performance at the NCAAs would be talked about for another 50 years or more,” says Boldon, who ran for UCLA. “I was struck that maybe he himself had no clue how good he could be then because he seemed almost surprised I sought him out. I knew anyone who could run 10.09 (seconds in the 100) and less than an hour later run 44.5 was a once-in-a-lifetime talent.”
Carter nearly proved that July 11 at a meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he won the 200 in 19.63, a mark that has been beaten only by Michael Johnson’s world-record 19.32 at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
“Right now, 19.63 at 20 years of age says he is the best 200 talent ever,” Boldon says. “But time will tell. He is the only man alive that I think has a legit shot at 19.32, which I didn’t think I would see broken in my lifetime.”
Carter started track in fifth grade, prompted by his father, Ken, who had seen his son’s speed in other sports. He won his first national titles, a 100-200-400 triple, as a rising eighth-grader.
In his last two years at Melbourne (Fla.) Palm Bay High School, he won state titles in the 100, 200 and 400 and was named national prep track athlete of the year by various organizations. As a senior, he also was a consensus All-American wide receiver by recruiting publications.
“He was always playing other sports,” says his father, an engineer. “He was always going to another season.”
Not anymore. The NCAA performance was enough to prompt Carter to hire agent Mark Block, sign with Nike through 2012 and obtain a passport. He took a well-deserved break, bypassing the USA Championships, and then headed for the European circuit, where he delivered the stunning 200 in Lausanne.
Just as he had done in Sacramento, Carter didn’t act as if he had done anything special in Lausanne.
“I was just trying to break 20 (seconds) because I had never done it,” he says. “I take (19.63) as a huge accomplishment. But I also want to get Michael Johnson’s record, so I can’t dwell on the 19.6. I’m shooting for 19.3.”
What makes Carter’s time more impressive is that it was only his second 200 of the season and he was running in Lane 8, with no sense of where the competition was during the first 100 meters because of the staggered starting positions.
“It’s not an easy race to master,” Shaver says. “You can go out hard and not finish too good, or you can go out too slow and have too much left at the end.”
Carter might have started too slowly. At the 100 mark, he was fourth (his split time was 10.33) and well behind leader Tyson Gay (10.11), who wound up second in 19.70. That means Carter ran the second 100 in 9.30, impressive but not as mind-boggling as Johnson’s 9.12 at the '96 Atlanta Games.
“He’s just an extremely powerful runner,” Shaver says of the 6-3, 205-pound Carter. “He’s improved significantly technically his two years here (at LSU) but has room to grow. Sheer raw power and belief in what he’s doing are his strengths.”
World-class experience isn’t a strength. Carter got a lesson a week after the meet Lausanne.
Facing a star-studded 400 field at a meet in Rome, he finished second as Olympic and world champion Jeremy Wariner ran away with a personal-best 43.62. Carter finished in 44.76.
“It was a learning experience,” says Carter, who made Shaver laugh by disparaging his form in the last 50 meters. "You’ve got to really know how to run your race. You can’t say, ‘Well, I’m just going to run fast all the way around.’
“This is the elite level, where people study the race so much they know when to preserve and when to let loose.”
Olympics trump NFL
Carter has learned from losses since fifth grade. His father remembers an impromptu parking lot match race against a teammate after an AAU basketball practice. When his son lost, he vowed he would beat the victor in the local meet later in the year. When race day arrived, his father tried to steer Carter out of the heat with his friend to no avail.
Carter won the 100 rematch convincingly. “I knew right then he had the determination to succeed,” his father says.
The determination to win an Olympic gold medal led Carter to drop football. Not that it was an easy decision for a player who was a USA TODAY All-USA selection in 2003 and helped Palm Bay win two state titles. But in two seasons at LSU, Carter had just nine catches. Although he played sparingly, he had a flair for the spectacular, with two touchdowns last season.
“He was in our plans this year,” LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher says. "I think he had a great future. I think he had a chance to be drafted (by the NFL) with his speed.
“He dropped a few balls but caught some, too. He’s a tough guy, physical. He’s got that competitive edge you get in football when you’ve got to go and someone’s ahead of you. Xavier runs as fast as he needs to run.”
Shaver lobbied for another year of college football and track but couldn’t persuade Carter or his family.
“I had a dream of going to the Olympics,” Carter says. "Now that I’m at the elite level, I didn’t want to wait one more year, injure my knee in football and never have a chance to shoot for the Olympics.
“Football is always going to be there. Me going to the Olympics is not. It was a tough decision, but one of my dreams is a gold medal.”
After his first European stint in mid-July, Carter returned to Baton Rouge and trained for today’s 100 in Stockholm, Sweden, and Friday’s 200 in London. He’ll resume classes at LSU as a junior Aug. 28.
Then he’ll have his first fall of track training. He and Shaver will plan for 2007, a world championships year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Track fans wonder how good Carter can be with a full season of training, improved technique and more experience.
“There are so many variables and factors, but knowing him the way I know him, he’s not going to get sidetracked,” Shaver says. “He’s got that uncanny ability not to lose focus on that prize at the end.”