RICHMOND – He brags that he can call Snoop Dogg on speed dial. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed him in a Hollywood blockbuster. He has speaking fees everywhere in the country and carries trading cards and copies of his own book that he signs for anyone who asks (and even some who don't).
And on Thursday night, Ken Carter was one among about two dozen people in a basketball arena where the one signs that a game was on were the squeak of sneakers and 4 buzzers that signaled the tip of every quarter. The stands were empty. There was no band, no students aside from a number of stragglers on their cell phones.
Coach Carter is back at Richmond High School.
He's now 65, a grandfather and 25 years faraway from the 1999 season depicted within the 2005 box office hit. This time he faces a totally different challenge. Look no further than the ultimate rating in his first game on the bench, a 55-31 loss to a seven-player team from a small private academy in Oakland.
“The stands were full back then. I mean, totally full,” Carter said. “But I guarantee we’ll have this place full by game six.”
It was the Oilers' fourth game of the season and their fourth loss. Carter had other commitments that prevented him from attending the previous three dates, forcing him to miss twice, and at first glance he didn’t look like present on Thursday either.
During his first stint with this system from 1997 to 2002, Carter gained a status for wearing a suit and tie on game days and requiring his players to do the identical. This was one among several rules spelled out in a contract he made all of his players sign, together with maintaining a grade point average of at the very least 2.3.
Things have modified, and so has Carter's wardrobe, which included a navy blue tracksuit with a faculty logo and open-toe white sneakers.
When he first took over this system, he promised to show boys into men. Now it's about turning boys into basketball players. At that point, he inherited a team of 45 players who filled the varsity, JV and freshman squads. The team he took over this fall has 10 members, most of whom have struggled to fill out their jerseys.
“Our kids are undersized, some of them are playing basketball for the first time,” Carter said. “I'm enjoying training here more than ever now, with the kids and their attitude. The children's attitude is simply wonderful. … We don’t have any problems academically. We're just not a big team physically. But I think that will change next year. I think we’ll be pretty good next year.”
Richmond has passed through 4 coaches within the last 4 years, posting winning seasons, including going 1-21 last 12 months while averaging 48.5 points per game. Senior Jayden Briscoe said he believes Carter, a star player at Richmond within the Seventies, is committed to rebuilding this system.
While Carter was on the sideline for a game for the primary time, he coached the team in practice all summer.
“He makes us work a lot harder,” Briscoe said. “The other coaches, no hate on them, but their practices were very different. It's a different work ethic. Carter, he's going to have us practice for two hours (planned) and we're going to end up staying there for four hours. With the other buses it would be an hour and 30 minutes.”
Carter plans to place his own resources into this system and hopes his name recognition can deter among the area's most talented players from selecting a non-public school, similar to Salesian, the private school nearby that’s all for the qualified for the state open division tournament.
“There isn’t a college coach in America that I can’t call and he won’t return my call,” he said.
The setting that inspired the film and to which it returned Thursday night couldn't be farther from the brilliant lights of Hollywood. At the time of the film's release, no player had yet been born on the sector. But Carter clearly still carried weight with the present generation.
“I really wanted to see him,” said Irvelle Winchester, a freshman guard from rival Envision Academy. “It was something local, so I really liked the film. I didn't know who he was until I saw it, but I thought, “Damn.” How he turned a trash team into a good team. I cautiously look up to him.”
After a physical game, Winchester fell to the ground and Carter jumped from his spot on the bench to ascertain on him.
Afterwards, Carter stuck around to take photos, sign autographs and chat with the complete opposing team and their coaches. After shaking hands, he headed straight to the car parking zone and got here back with a stack of cards, which he signed and passed around, together with a number of copies of his book.
“I am one of the so-called celebrities you can touch,” he said. “People ask me, 'Why did I come back to Richmond?' First, it was just love for Richmond. I hope that this school will be extremely successful. Now I have a Rolodex of resources so we can get things done. … This brings us full circle.”
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