Paying His Dues
Demond Carter became an All-American wrestler the tough way. And he's not finished yet.
Dan Gilland
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Sports
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The journey from East St. Louis, Ill., has been jammed with long days and hard work for Carter. He used to think about giving up wrestling, exhausted from days filled with extra workouts, trying to cut weight. Now he probably won't see much real action on the mat until mid-February.
Something has to be keeping him going.
"All I think about is being a national champ, being on the wall, leaving my legacy at SMSU," Carter said. "And that's what motivates me most of the time."
Carter is in his first season with the Mustangs, after spending the previous two years at Lincoln Community College in Lincoln, Ill. SMSU head coach Jesse Nelson raves about the character and leadership Carter has brought to the program. He recently cracked the Division II national rankings, and is currently the No. 8 wrestler at 149 pounds.
But the present isn't the place to start. To really understand why Dave Klemm, Carter's head coach at Lincoln, calls Carter's tale "a Cinderella story," you have to go back a few years.
Waiting for a spot
Carter arrived at Lincoln as a walk-on recruit, meaning the school had interest in him, but he didn't have a scholarship. Klemm runs a wrestling program that is consistently among the nation's best in the National Junior College Athletic Association. His lineup was pretty well filled out when Carter got to Lincoln. Klemm liked Carter's ability, but wasn't exactly looking for an All-American season from the freshman.
"When he came in, honestly, we didn't have any kind of expectations out of him on that, because we had other people on the team," Klemm said.
So Carter worked.
"I had to break open doors on my own, do it on my own," Carter said. "If I wasn't given a scholarship, I had to take one, you know? I had to just work 10 times harder than everybody."
That meant starting his mornings with workouts at 8 and 11. Team practice was at 3. He'd take a few hours off and then train again in the evening.
"I put in the time," Carter said. "I'm not even gonna lie."
The payoff came later in his freshman season, around the start of the second semester. Injuries hit the Lynx. Wrestlers changed weight classes. And Carter had been getting ready.
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