By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Naseem Carter certainly has the build of a college offensive lineman.
At 6-foot-3 and over 300 pounds, the West Windsor-Plainsboro High South graduate had hopes of being recruited to play at the college level. When offers didn’t come his way, he decided to take a different path to a four-year program.
“After the season ended at South I was trying to get colleges interested,” Carter said. “That didn’t happen so what I decided to do was go to Nassau Community College on Long Island. I saw they are very good community college program and I can work on my skills and hopefully go from there to a four-year school.”
Before heading to Nassau, Carter will be one of several area players that will be part of the West squad in the 19th Annual Sunshine Football Classic, sponsored by Fisher Capital LLC, at The College of New Jersey on July 1 at 7 p.m.
“It will be a lot of fun,” said Carter, who will play on the offensive line. “We’ll be playing against a defense we don’t really see in high school. It will be a good opportunity to start learning and will help me learn what I need to do as an offensive lineman in college. One of the coaches went to Lackawanna and has helped us out a lot. At South we were a zone blocking scheme and we’re doing more man blocking for this game.”
Carter is one of five players from WW-P South that will be play in the game. Andrew Schoepfer, Prakhar Yadav, Scott Robinson and Austin Mao are the other Pirates who will play for the West, which will be coached by WW-P South head coach Skip Edwards.
WW-P North will be represented on the West by Kevin Murphy, Robert Peterson, Kade Laforge, Jack Schilder, Logan Brodsky and Gregg Olson. WW-P North coach Jeff Reilly will be a West assistant coach.
Princeton High will have former players Sam Smallzman, That Moore, Ben Danis, Colin Buckley, Omar Moustafa, Brian Lemus-Camey, Tommy Moore and Joe Hawes on the West squad.
Hun School assistant coach John Law will help coach the West team as an assistant.
Practice for the game began on Tuesday and will continue through the week. The players will take the weekend off before getting back to practice on Monday and Tuesday in preparation for the game. “Wad a walk through the first night and went through some plays the second day,” Carter said.
Carter is just happy to be back on field as he looks to get ready to play at Nassau. He missed his junior season with an injury, so his senior year was his only varsity experience.
“This year was really the only year I got to play varsity so I only have one year of experience,” Carter said. “I had a couple months of just training and resting my body. Now I have to get back to work. Like Coach Edwards said, we have to come in already in condition and ready to get going.”
Proceeds from the game will go to the Sunshine Foundation, which makes dreams come true for seriously ill, physically challenged and abused children whose parents are under financial strain due to their child’s illness.
Tickets to the game can be purchased in advance for $5 from participating players or from www.sunshinefootballclassic.com. You can also email Game Director Jack Dunn at jdunnrams@comcast.net. Tickets are $7 at the gate.
