This Week in Michigan Football History offers up a huge happy birthday to Wolverine legend Anthony Carter. Hear it live inside the glorious new Bud Light Victors Lounge aka Joe Simon’s garage, as part of the WTKA 1050AM Countdown To Kickoff.
This week we share a story from the final days of the 1979 recruiting period as we tried to land AC. We conclude, naturally, a few months later when Bo Schembechler’s men faced Lee Corso’s Indiana Hoosiers with Bob Ufer on the call. Dig it:
Audio:
YouTube:
Go Blue! Check out the full story from Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis here. Check out all of the This Week… clips here and MVictors History Show on YouTube.
Here’s the full script:
Good morning. Today we wish happy birthday to the amazing Anthony Carter, born on this day in 1960! AC remains one of the most electric and dazzling players in Meechigan football lore. Despite playing in a three-yards-and-a-cloud of dust era, he tallied over 3,000 receiving yards and rewrote the Wolverine record book. Though he didn’t win the Heisman, his highlights remain on par with Tom Harmon, Desmond Howard, and Charles Woodson.
The story of how Carter ended up in Ann Arbor is a wild and unlikely tale. We know the details thanks to my man Steve “Dr. Sap” Saparandis. You see Carter was a native of Riveria Beach, Florida and it took some convincing to get him out of the Sunshine State and all the way up to Michigan. We knew that he was something special, and Michigan pulled out all the stops land the super-talented star.
AC was leaning toward going to Miami but the staff convinced him to take a visit to Ann Arbor. The trip was scheduled in the winter, and any hope of catching a warm spell was dashed when the visit day forecast was a frigid 10 DEGREES! Top of mind for the staff was not letting the cold scare off the young talent, so they hatched a plan, codenamed: KEEP AC WARM!
Coach Bill McCartney personally flew down and brought AC back to Ann Arbor. A car was ready on the tarmac just outside the plane and it took him right to the doors of the football building. The rest of the day the tour was so tightly coordinated, AC was never outside for more than a few seconds!
When they returned to Florida, Carter told Coach McCartney, “You know coach, it really wasn’t that cold!” That’s when they know they had him. To seal the deal, Bo himself flew down to Florida on signing day, and even (true story) rolled up his pant legs and dipped into the Everglades, and personally carried back AC’s letter of intent.
If you didn’t know that piece of the AC legend, you probably know this one. Among his countless moments of Meechigan lore, Carter was part of one of the most famous plays in our history – this from 1979 as we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the football program, take it away Bob Ufer:
[UFER – JOHNNY WANGLER TO ANTHONY CARTER OMG]
Go Blue! And In honor of AC’s 62nd birthday, let’s hang a SIXTY-DEUCE on the Huskies.
For more go to MVictors.com or WTKA.com – for the Keybank Countdown to Kickoff, this is Professor Greg Dooley.
