ITG-SEGA / September 2016
He has the ability to sniff out and find the ball carrier and bring him down quickly. He can ward off blockers and still have the presence of mind to go after the ball. He is a man on a mission, and one day that mission could be catching criminals instead of running backs. McIntosh County Academy senior Frederick Carswell plans on attending Valdosta State University to major in criminal justice so he can track down bad guys in the future. For now, the 5-foot-11, 190-pound inside linebacker for coach Robby Robinson’s MCA Buccaneers will concentrate on running down quarterbacks and anyone else who wants to come across the line his way.
“After I break the huddle and I’m lined up on the field, the only thing on my mind is ‘winning this play,’” Carswell said. “Playing defense, it’s like every snap is a battle and you have to attack your enemy with no fear or you lose. So I remove all sense of fear from my body and play ball.”
Fred, as friends call him, is the son of Ulysses and Tamika Carswell of Darien and is an Honor Roll student at MCA with a 3.5 GPA. “With the good grades, I meet the requirements you need academically to play,” Carswell said. “Also, paying attention in class and getting good grades means you’re focused in the classroom. If you’re focused in the classroom, when you step on to that field you’ll have that same mindset of ‘I need to pay attention and know what to do.’ Coach Rob always says that how you act in the classroom will affect how you play on the field.”
Still, there is a difference between being smart in the classroom and being smart on the football field. “His intelligence goes go both ways,” Robinson said. “From a football standpoint, he was raw, but it doesn’t take him long to catch on to stuff. He’s a very vocal leader as well, so the combination of his brains and his being a vocal leader is a win-win.”
Carswell got his start playing football in Alamo, Georgia. Once he moved to Darien, he took a break and returned to football his freshman year. He felt it wasn’t working for him, so he took another season off and focused on academics. After learning to balance both academics and athletics and still have some “down time,” he returned to the game thanks to the cajoling of Robinson, who returned to MCA last season.
“His personality, his energy, his enthusiasm: It was an attention grabber,” Robinson said. “He did not play football the year before, so I began immediately to recruit him, so to speak.” Carswell has an older brother who played for MCA and later at Shorter University.
Still, he didn’t show for his first day of practice. That’s when his mother stepped in and spoke to him. “She is very supportive and stays on top of him academically and athletically and wants nothing but the best for him,” Robinson said. “She came up here the very next day at school and talked to him, and he showed up at practice, and the rest has been history.”
Coaches consider Carswell an outstanding young man of character and leadership, and it didn’t take long for him to become a starter. “We knew he had it in him, but he didn’t know he had it in him,” Robinson said. In the weight room, Carswell can bench press 240 pounds, squat 400, and clean 265. He has a 4.6 40-yard dash, giving him the speed to pursue running backs and receivers who get through to the second level.
He works closely with Defensive Coordinator Terrel Toomer and inside linebackers coach William Ragen. It earned him All-Region Honorable Mention in region 2-AA for his junior year. “I’d like to say that my linebacker coach, Ragen, has helped me the most,” Carswell said. “Everyday at practice he makes sure we understand our duties on the field and that we execute them precisely. He also makes sure we get stronger in the weight room, and believe me: We do with his workouts. They are no joke. He also gives us diet plans on how to put on weight the healthy way and other basic knowledge of eating right.”
Over the past year, Carswell has improved on the field mentally by better understanding the game and physically in the weight room. He started eating healthier and working out more.
He became a starter after last year’s scrimmage against Glynn Academy. “My favorite part of the game has to be the feeling of going against a really good team and just having a great physical game,” Carswell said.
Currently, Shorter University and Lagrange College are looking at Carswell. “I believe I have the potential to play in college, but only if I continue my hard work on the field and off,” Carswell said. Robinson believes that in the future, people will be calling Carswell “boss.” He could become the head of a company, an attorney, an accountant, or an FBI agent. “He can be whatever he wants to be because he’s very intelligent,” Robinson said. “I do believe he has the ability to play at the next level. It will come down to where his fit is. I do believe that he will be able to pay for his education due to his academic and athletic abilities.”
ITG Web Content
A Badge In His Future
Written by: Rob Asbell
Photos by: Michael Brinson
