Trying to illustrate that the Nets’ Vince Carter isn’t a game-tanking malcontent (as was his rep in Toronto), the New York Times John Elgin coaxes a particularly Vinsane memory out of Carter’s mom. One that strangely, doesn’t appear in today’s online edition of the Times.
Michelle Carter-Scott said she did not understand how people could view her son as a slacker. Carter has been an overzealous competitior since childhood, Carter-Scott said.
During field day in fifth grade, Carter-Scott said, her son’s teachers instructed the entire class to alllow a student with a prosthetic leg to win the 50-yard-dash. Carter had other ideas : backpedalin, he crossed the finish line at the same time as the young boy with the missing limb. They both received a first-place ribbon.
“The competitive nature of him could not let that kid win the race, even though the child had one leg,” Carter-Scott said.
Perhaps intimidated by the two-legged opposition, Vince has shot 2 of 10 from the field, missing 8 of his last 9 shots (0 for 4 from three-point range), with Indy leading New Jersey, 37-36 midway through the 2nd quarter.