varsity.roanoke.com

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Cameron Carter, a senior right tackle at Northside, is a nominee for the Willis White Kroger Crunch Scholarship.

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Go to a Northside High School football game and several things stand out.

See the inspirational messages spelled out by Styrofoam cups stuck in the softball and baseball fences next to the road that leads to the campus.

Taste a couple of the hot dogs at the concession stand.

Hear a high-level public address announcer on a newly upgraded sound system.

Then when the teams come out on the field, try not to spot Northside offensive lineman Cameron Carter ... all 6 feet, 4 inches and 340 pounds of him.

Not a chance.

"He's the first thing you notice," Northside coach Burt Torrence said. "You can't come to a Northside game and not notice No. 78 on the field."

There is not as much of Carter to notice as there was a year ago. The big senior has dropped 40 pounds from his listed weight of 380 in 2008.

The 17-year-old has several reasons for being Northside's biggest loser.

"Not just for football, but more so just to live," Carter said. "I've got some medical problems. The more weight I start losing, the more they'll start to decline."

Carter comes from a big family with a history of diabetes. Three relatives -- Marty Bolden. Junior Bolden and Calvin Crowder -- are former Northside football players.

"All my family is pretty much ... you know ... we got body," Carter said.

Northside opponents have discovered that the hard way.

The Vikings, who will host Brookville in a Region III Division 3 semifinal Friday night, have amassed nearly 4,000 yards of total offense led by the steamrolling right tackle.

"Everybody we line up against is diving down at his ankles," Torrence said. "If you try to block him up high, it's a losing battle.

"You name the team. We put on the game film and you'll see him absolutely destroy somebody."

Carter played defensive tackle as a junior, but he moved over to offense early this season after injuries to Trent Cundiff and Matt Sandoval. Both have since returned.

"If Sandoval and Trent don't get hurt, more than likely I don't put Cam in there," Torrence said. "Me being a dumb coach, I didn't put him there earlier."

Carter has added considerable strength to his frame by spending time in Northside's weight room. During his sophomore year in 2007, Carter would have rather visited the dentist.

"I had the size, but I really didn't have the attitude," Carter said. "The weight room, I was just kind of in there. It was kind of like, 'Why do I have to go?' I really didn't see the big picture. I thought it was quite pointless. I wanted to play, but I thought the weight room part was stupid.

"Once I got to junior year I realized, 'Yeah, that's pretty much where I need to stay from here on out.'

"I always check [Rivals.com] and look at TV and see the distance between other players and see where I could have been. I always wonder if I had been so committed all four years, where would I be right now?"

While Carter is one of Timesland's largest high school football players, there is one person he won't challenge.

Mom.

Vickie Carter is a 1981 Northside graduate, who moved from Norfolk back to Roanoke when she and Cameron's father -- a former Navy man -- divorced when Cameron was a toddler.

Carter has maintained a relationship with his father, who lives in Dallas. His dad came to Northside's final regular-season home game in late October.

Nevertheless, Carter has been the only child of a single-mom for almost his entire life.

"She's been the rock," Torrence said.

That rock has gone upside the kid's head a few times.

"When I was in the eighth grade on the track team, three classes of mine had slipped bad," Carter said. "She got my report card and I was on punishment for four weeks. I had to read a book for two hours every day and write a report.

"During the time, I didn't like it. But now that I look back on it, 'Thank you, because I might not be in the right grade right now.'

"She forces me to do my work. She nit-picks, but it's a good kind of nit-pick. That's pretty much where I get most of the drive. Now it's more so, because I don't want her to have to pay for college."

That might soon be the case. Torrence believes someone at the Division I-AA level will offer Carter a scholarship.

"He's got the quickest first step of any kid I've ever coached. I can see him playing at 325 and being a quick guard," the Northside coach said. "I'm 100 percent positive he'll have an offer on the table before the year is out, whether its [Old Dominion] or Liberty or whoever."

Carter should be ready to leave the nest.

As a 9-year-old he accompanied a church group on a mission to Mexico. Last summer he served as a student ambassador with "People to People." spending time in England, Scotland and Ireland.

Carter is squared away academically. He is Northside's nominee for the Willis White Kroger Crunch Scholarship.

"He's a kid who does things right all the time," Torrence said. "He goes to class. He pays attention in class. He asks questions when he doesn't understand. He goes in for extra help if he needs it."

Northside's 2008 season ended with a second-round 38-0 playoff loss at Brookville. Now the Vikings -- who were 2-8 two years ago -- are looking not only for revenge but to keep their playoff hopes alive.

"I think we can," Carter said. "I think we will. This year, I think, is our year to bring it home for all the years of grinding and losing and people not having our back.

"I think this year, playing Brookville, that's a taste we've all been waiting for."