Mount legend and NBA veteran, Fred Carter

Steve Morano
MSMU Class of 2024

(1/2023) The game of basketball runs deep in the fabric of Mount Saint Mary’s University. The game, along with the Mount, has grown since the sports inception at the school. In 1953, coach Jim Phelan arrived at the Mount after a short career in the NBA and would go on to rack up a record of 830-524 in his 49 years as head coach, earning him a spot in the College Basketball Hall of Fame and ninth in the all-time wins as a coach in NCAA history. In 1962, Phelan led the Mount to a College Division National Championship (now Division II). In 1989, the Mount made the leap to Division I, and as of 2022, has made the National Tournament on six occasions. But no other moment in the history of the university or the basketball program is as important as in 1965, when Fred Carter stepped into Memorial Gym: he was the first African-American athlete to play for the Mount and one of the first African-American students at the school.

Carter, a native of Philadelphia, was discovered by coach Phelan, another native of the City of Brotherly Love in the early 1960’s. Phelan was in the city scouting another player by the name of John Baum (who would go on to play at Temple and win Mid-Atlantic player of the year twice) in a city all-star game. Carter, who went to Franklin High School, was also selected for the all-star game, and when he won MVP of the game, Phelan then shifted his attention to Fred. Phelan asked Carter if he wanted to play basketball at the Mount, but on one condition. Before playing in the all-star game that garnered Phelan’s attention, Carter had dropped out of high school, and Phelan wanted him to go back and earn his diploma. After mailing his high school grades to Carter in the summer of 1965, he was accepted to the Mount and was on his way to play ball in Emmitsburg.

"Basketball was a mainstay at the school," Carter said. In 1965, the Mount was still riding high on the 1962 National Championship and Carter was coming into a storied program that was already established. After the beginning of the 1965 season, Carter became a favorite among the fans, garnering the chant "In Fred We Trust"—and rightfully so. Carter was a very physical player, especially under the basket, which was exceptional because he was a guard. This mirrors a very different time in basketball history: before the inception of the three point line, players were expected to perform every role on the court, but Carter’s defensive prowess did not overshadow his offensive performances. Mount records are hard to come by for the 1960’s, but Carter’s NBA statistics speak volumes. Carter averaged a career 15.2 points per game, 3.9 total rebounds per game and 3.5 assists per game. He had a monstrous 42.5 career field goal percentage and was automatic from the line, having a career 69.3 free throw percentage. If these numbers from the professional circuit are any indicator of his offensive output, then one can only imagine what his stats were like in the old College Division.

But throughout everything at the Mount, Carter still had to face a plague that had been ingrained in American society: racism. In western Maryland, the Mount was a standalone institution, finally integrating in the early 1960’s, but things were slow, and by the time Carter arrived in 1965, he was not only the only black athlete, but he was the only black student at the time. Before he even arrived at the Mount, he had concerns. On the same drive down from Philadelphia, Carter asked Phelan how many African American students there were at the school. "He said, ‘Fred, look in the rear-view mirror, you would be the only one.’ And I was undaunted by that," Carter said. He went on to say, "It was different, being the only black guy on the team, being the only black guy at the school, that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was when we travelled, when we went to schools like Randolph Macon, Roanoke College, schools in the south were very difficult." It was at a tournament held at Randolph Macon where things boiled over. At halftime, the Mount was up by five points heading into the locker room, and as the teams headed in, Carter walked back out onto the court to get his warmups off the bench. "Everybody is passing me going to the locker room, and I am by myself walking and I got punched twice." Carter went onto comment on his team’s reaction saying, "I went back to my coach, and Big Bob Sutter, who was from Philadelphia and a good friend of mine, he was ready to go into the stands."

"Different things happened, but let me pause and say this, being at the Mount was the best experience of my life, it had its ups and downs, but I would do it again in a heartbeat," Carter said. Along with tackling the racism of the south at the time, Carter had to break down the stereotypes held in the minds of students at the Mount, who had learned these horrible things from their families and environment, and he did. All throughout this time, Carter was not alone; Coach Phelan and his wife, Dottie, were Fred’s surrogate parents. When he was being recruited to go to the Mount, Fred’s mother asked coach Phelan if he would take care of her son; he, without hesitation, said yes.

In 1969, after his career at the Mount was up, Carter was drafted with the 43rd overall pick by the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA. With the Bullets, he spent the most time in the post season, reaching the playoffs in both the 1969-70 season and the 1970-71 season. One game during the 70-71 playoffs stood out in his mind: Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The game finished 93-91, which, in a time before the inception of the three-point arc, was fast paced and high scoring. In a Game 7 scenario, no visiting team has done that to the New York Knicks since, giving Carter and his team a tiny piece of basketball history. Carter would go on to play another season in Baltimore; he then spent six seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, playing in the playoffs one more time. He finally retired at the end of the 1976-77 season after playing for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Fred said that people, fans of the various NBA team he played for, would have simply notched his career potential up to being a journeyman. Maybe this was because he was drafted out of tiny Mount Saint Mary’s College. In 1975, he finished 10th in scoring and points per game, in the 1975-76 season he played in 82 games, the second most in the entirety of the NBA, and through most offensive stats throughout the 1970’s, Carter ranks in the Top 20 in many categories. The Journeyman that fans thought he would be helped the Bullets to their one and only NBA Finals appearance. Not bad for a kid from tiny Mount Saint Mary’s.