Jacarde Carter never imagined himself working in education.
But the former Northside High School linebacker's life began to take unexpected turns when he suffered major damages in a car crash one year after graduating from Grambling in 2015.
The long recovery changed Carter's perspective.
Another shift in his career plans occurred when Carter attended a Northside boys basketball game in 2022. He thought to himself, “This is different.”
And it was, considering Carter was comparing the present to when he attended Northside from 2005-09 and the Vikings, aka the “bomb squad,” were playing in front of large crowds.
“Northside was a vibe,” Carter said. “The heartbeat of the school wasn’t there. The energy and the support were all gone. Even in the years we weren’t winning, the support was still there. The culture was still there. But that night, the gym wasn’t filled. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I don’t even recognize this place.”
Carter decided to do something about it, returning to Northside as the defensive coordinator in 2022 and began the challenge to “Revive the Side.”
“I had to do something,” he said. “There wasn’t a big drop-off in talent. The culture was just gone. This was not us. It was upsetting to see.”
Carter was promoted to head football coach in 2023.
“I saw the talent we had, and I was just like, ‘Why are we not producing?' ” said Carter, who won two state championships as coach and two as a defensive coordinator while at Lafayette Christian. “So that was a driving force for me in accepting the job. I most definitely felt called to the job bring energy and a championship pedigree to the program.”
That “calling” to the coaching profession wasn’t even a thought for Carter before 2016. But the car crash that left him in a immobilized brace for three months and required him to learn how to walk again, led Carter to pursue the career.
“I never thought about coaching or being in the education profession,” he said. “My sister is in education, and I was like ‘never.’ But here I am.”
On June 5, 2016, Carter was on his way to Grambling to listen to one of his mentors give her first sermon. However, while crossing an intersection in Bently right outside of Alexandria, Carter's Honda Accord was t-boned by another vehicle.
“After that, it was the Jaws of Life (to get me out of the car),” Carter said. “That’s where my memory of that day ends.”
Carter suffered a displacement fracture in his foot and a lacerated patellar tendon.
“That was a tough time for me,” he said. “I was basically independent before the accident and after the accident I needed assistance to get out of bed and to go to the bathroom. I struggled mentally through it. It was a dark time.”
While the recovery wasn’t easy as it took Carter nearly a year to be able to walk again, the lessons he learned have been priceless.
“When I look at what was left of the car, my injuries were small potatoes compared to what could have been,” he said. “I process things differently now. I rarely complain because I know things could be worse. I treat every moment as if it is my last, because we don’t know when that moment will be.”
Carter, who said he believes he’s “always been led by something greater than myself."
“At times, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” Carter said. “I know that my life was spared for a reason, but I don’t want to be foolish and put it on one thing.
“When I’m gone, I want to be remembered for being a thermostat (in terms of) being able to change any environment and that I left on empty,” he said. “I want it to be known that I gave everything I had to every situation I was in, and I leave with no regrets.”