Carter's game exceeds UH's speed limit

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i point guard Jason Carter isn't having the senior season he'd hoped for but he plans to graduate next year "and that's something nobody expected out of me." Advertiser library photo WAC basketball WHO: Tulsa vs. Hawai'i WHEN: Tomorrow, 7:05 p.m. WHERE: Stan Sheriff Center TV: Live on K5 (Channel 5) RADIO: Live on KKEA (1420-AM)

Just look at his tattoos. Or his high school resume. Or his right index finger with the tip cut off.

Or the way he can change a basketball game — good or bad — with his furious pace.

"I realize the speed I play at is not the same speed as the rest of the team," said Carter, a senior point guard for the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team. "But it's the only way I know how to play."

Carter's career with the Rainbow Warriors is in its final weeks. Although his playing time has diminished recently, he will still play a key reserve role tomorrow when the 'Bows host Tulsa in a Western Athletic Conference game at the Stan Sheriff Center.

It hasn't exactly been the senior season he, or the Hawai'i coaches, wanted. Carter, who is listed at 5 feet 10 and 155 pounds, is averaging 3.3 points and 2.0 assists per game.

"He's so used to playing a certain way and the makeup of this team doesn't fit that way," Hawai'i head coach Riley Wallace said. "I wish he was having a better senior year, too, because he's come such a long way. But I still consider him our energizer. He's the only guy who can come in and give us that kind of speed and quickness."

Carter grew up running. It was one of his most important survival skills as a child in Gary, Ind. — which was once recognized as "the murder capital of America."

"I came out of the ghetto," he said. "I'm not the same person I was then, but I can't change the way I was raised."

Mostly, he was raised on basketball. Even after the tip of his right index finger was cut off in a childhood accident, he switched from shooting with his right hand to his left.

All of the tattoos on his body are basketball-related, including the one that nobody but him seems to understand. It is a woman with her legs apart, giving birth to a basketball. He has been asked by school officials to cover the tattoo during games, which is why he always has a wrap around his left biceps.

"People think it's a sex thing," he said. "But it's a tribute to my mom, about how I feel like she gave birth to a basketball player."

That he even made his way from Gary to Honolulu is a story as fascinating as his 41-inch vertical jump.

After his freshman year at Horace Mann High, he dropped out of school to care for his father, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. All his other family members had moved out of Gary by then.

"I was the only one left, and I wasn't about to leave my father alone," he said.

By chance during a pick-up basketball game, Carter met Chuck Hughes, a city councilman in Gary.

When Hughes learned of Carter's situation, he agreed to help him get back into Horace Mann. Carter was eventually accepted back and raised eyebrows as a senior basketball player.

"He got offers from Purdue, Notre Dame; a lot of big schools," Hughes said. "The problem was that he was nowhere close to making it academically."

What's more, Carter's father was being moved to Georgia to live with other relatives who could afford better health care. "I basically got left back by myself," Carter said.

Hughes became his mentor, and a woman who worked as a hall monitor at Horace Mann agreed to let Carter move in with her family.

"He's had a rough life already," Hughes said. "We're disappointed in terms of his playing time, but we couldn't be prouder that he's in college going for his degree."

Carter eventually got his graduation equivalency diploma and played two seasons at Barton County Community College (Kan.) before enrolling at Hawai'i.

"I didn't contribute as much as I should have this year," Carter said. "But I'm planning on staying here another year to graduate. Even though things didn't work out as far as basketball, I can still leave Hawai'i with a college education, and that's something nobody expected out of me."

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8101.