Take a scroll down the Duke Blue Devils website bio of defensive tackle DeWayne Carter, and some impressive numbers might leap off the page. If you take the time to read all the way to the bottom, you can’t help but be impressed by the rich football lineage that the 6’3″, 303-pound redshirt senior has running through his veins.
Yet, there’s something more outstanding; words that stand out more when you dig below the surface of the athlete to discover the man beneath the helmet. Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. Wuerffel Trophy watch list. Ace Parker Award. For as good as he is between the white lines, Carter is defined by more than the game he’s famous for, for more than his football pedigree.
Duke Defensive Tackle DeWayne Carter is More Than Football
As the beating heart of a Duke defense that finished fifth in the ACC for points allowed in 2022, setting a foundation for the Blue Devils’ best record since 2014, Carter’s job is to bully, to menace, to impose his will and strike fear into his opponent. It’s easy to create the perception that the persona of the athlete who lines up between the white lines is the same outside of them.
Removed of his helmet, pads, and the distinctive blue of the Duke jersey, Carter is relaxed, talkative, exuding an air of vibrance as he sits down to talk with College Football Network ahead of his fifth season in Durham. “Let them know I like to have fun,” he laughs as we wrap up a thoroughly engaging twenty-minute discussion about his life beyond football.
I can confirm that the Duke defensive tackle does indeed like to have fun. Yet, he’s deadly serious about his pursuit of excellence via service outside of the football arena.
For every sack or tackle for loss on his résumé, there’s an organization, establishment, foundation, or simply a group of kids that Carter has impacted in a positive way. For every forced fumble or quarterback pressure, there’s an accolade of honor for his work in the outside community, such as being named to the 2022 AFCA Allstate Good Works Team.
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“The way I model myself,” Carter addresses the awards that have come his way as the result of his community service. “I truly believe that God put me here to be a servant and leader, to give people my time — to “donate” my time. I truly believe time is the biggest thing you can give someone.
“Especially with the younger generation. Especially with the Durham population. Round here, there’s a lot of black kids and they just see that you’re at Duke and you’re excelling, that you’re successful. That representation means the world.”
Much like football doesn’t define the legacy that Carter leaves at Duke, nor the man that he’s become and will go on to be, the litany of accolades that he’s received for his impact on the community outside of Wallace Wade Stadium won’t define his efforts of leadership and servitude. Something more than an award on his résumé serves as a measuring stick for his impact.
“It’s pretty cool and rewarding to know that I’m making an impact,” Carter explains. “Especially when you have conversations with fans or kids that I’ve taught during my tenure at Duke. They’ll come back to games and tell me “I remember when you did this for me” and that’s pretty cool. That’s what means the most to me, to know that I’m making an impact.”
Habitat for Humanity Gives Carter His First Opportunity to Give Back at Duke
From the minute that Carter set foot on the Duke campus in Durham, he knew that he wanted to be actively involved in the community. A high school football captain, leadership had been a key cog of his final season at Pickerington Central. While he knew his impact as a true freshman on the football field would be minimal, he would maximize his influence off the field.
On game day, that would take the form of rallying and motivating the team from the sideline while whipping up the fans inside Wallace Wade Stadium with a waved towel and his infectious enthusiasm. Meanwhile, he funneled and focused his energy away from the football field by immersing himself within an initiative heralded by Duke alum—Habitat for Humanity.
“Habitat for Humanity build affordable housing for those that need,” Carter begins. “That was my entry level way into the community service sphere here at Duke. Every opportunity we had, we’re building houses, putting insulation into houses, nails, wood, whatever it may be. Knowing that if somebody needs help that they have someone to call on, was pretty cool.”
Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity—a largely volunteer-led organization where volunteers give up Saturday mornings to help build houses that provide accommodation for those in need of affordable solutions—gave the Duke defensive tackle a springboard into being active within the local community.
Since then, he has been heavily involved with children in the local community. Carter has helped with reading initiatives for school kids in the Durham area, spends his spare time serving as a youth baseball coach, and his influence on the next generation also extends to mentoring the freshmen that come through the doors of Duke University.
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As he looks beyond football to his long-term future, Carter doesn’t view those aspects of servitude as “volunteer work” because he knows ultimately that education will be his vocation.
However, the experiences of his past very much direct his current community involvement with the younger generation, as well as the long-term direction that he wants his life to take.
“I remember back to when I was a kid,” Carter recalls. “I had a lot of great role models and influences. I used to go to a lot of camps…I was a camp kid. My parents made sure I stayed busy. The biggest thing that stood out from those experiences was the way the older athletes always treated me, the way that they were invested in the fun that we had. The experience was truly irreplaceable.”
“Coming up, I wanted to do nothing but give that same experience to the kids. They view us as superheroes. They think we’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. To be able to hang out and have fun, whether it’s reading or sports camp, or even with the freshman mentees.”
“With the freshman, all the anxiety they have coming in, it’s kind of cool knowing you can be the person that lets them know it’ll be alright. I had a great senior group that took me under their wing and guided me and pushed me to be the man that I am today. I’m forever grateful for that, and want to continue that cycle.”
A Sporting Pedigree Bolstered by Family Values
As he grows, continuing that cycle has become tremendously important to Carter. His experiences of summer camps as a child have informed his focus and have given him his “why” when it comes to the specific reaches of his community endeavors.
Role models have come in many shapes, forms, and sizes along his journey to Duke, but unsurprisingly, the biggest influences on the young man behind the pads and helmet came from his family background growing up in Pickerington, Ohio—the family hometown since Carter was around four years old.
DeWayne Carter Sr. was a three-year letterman with the Ohio State Buckeyes, winning the 1993 Big Ten Championship while accumulating a 30-7-1 record during his career. Raymond Carter, his grandfather, was a two-sport standout at Youngstown State University who blazed a 9.7-second 100m time and was ultimately inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1997.
Even Uncle Raymond Carter was a tailback at the University of Notre Dame. The sporting pedigree is there for all to see. Yet, Kristin and DeWayne Carter Sr. provided so much more that helped turn their son from another youth product with sport in his bloodlines into being a man with community in his heart.
“As far as my community service efforts and where I get my passion and leadership mentality, that stems from my parents,” Carter explains. “At the time they both worked the same job. It was like a charter school in the inner city of Columbus.”
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“It was a place for kids to come after school, before school, to get extra help, different programs. They took kids down to camp at Ohio State, to the library, anything you could think of to try and be there for kids in the area. Being around them, being around how they interacted, they loved to give back.”
Rather than pushing sports on their son, the Carter family let the sport come to him. DeWayne Sr. had experienced the journey of playing football from the age of four and didn’t want that for his son, holding him out of organized activity for as long as possible.
When he finally hit the field, there was sporting advice, and family members would pore over his tape, offering critique and coachable points.
Yet, it was a different lesson that led Carter to be a three-time captain at Duke and an impactful community leader.
“I’ve always tried to be the best teammate I can be,” Carter reflects on his time as a leader. “That’s the advice that my parents gave me growing up. “You’ve got to control the things you can control with your attitude and effort.” My Dad, to this day, texts me that before every single game or big event so that’s kind of been my motto.”
Carter Embraces the Virtues of Education for all Walks of Life
Pickerington is a suburb of Columbus with a population of just over 23,000. It has been home for the longest part of Carter’s life. When he was born in the year 2000, 93% of the community was white, with just a three-percent population of African Americans.
Carter remembers a time at Pickerington Central when he was among less than a handful of black kids in his school. While the success of the program attracted students from outside the area to join the school and increased diversity, he has been a minority voice. Now, at Duke, he has both a platform and voice to be a leader as part of the United Black Athletes Organization.
“The main thing we do here is prove that we have a voice,” Carter explains. “We have a foot in the door in admin spaces, in meetings, direct paths to head coaches. When there are issues, when there are questions, we’re the group that deliberates and helps advise people if they do need help.”
Carter is cognizant that there are issues, divides, and prejudices that are prevalent today, not just in America but across the world, and he has a platform and voice to help make a difference. Education is key to his entire ethos, and it’s no surprise to find that sphere underpins his thoughts on making progress in diversity.
“Education is first for me. I believe that all history should be taught. As individuals, we all have phones, iPads, whatever. It doesn’t take much to research different prejudices, different events in history. There is so much out there, that you can teach yourself with every day.”
“If you’re passionate about learning and trying to improve a community or world, all you have to do is ask the question to one of your friends who might have faced that same prejudice. At the end of the day it just takes educated conversation and a genuine understanding and an open mind.”
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“People have tunnel vision. They see one way and one way only, and our world is not like that it. It’s not black and white, it’s not gay or straight, there’s so many things. I live by the golden rule that I was taught growing up and that’s treat everyone how you want to be treated, and that’s you respect everybody.”
rom his work with the United Black Athletes to his “volunteer” work with kids in the local community and his endeavors with Habitat for Humanity, Carter explained energetically and enthusiastically how he gives back to the local community.
Drawing from his upbringing in Pickerington, Ohio, the parental example, and the impact that role models made on his youth, the Duke defensive tackle speaks passionately and at length about why he gives back to the local community.
The only remaining question was how he finds the time between being a high-GPA student and starting defensive tackle in the ACC to maximize his potential impact in the community.
“I have a hard time saying no,” Carter laughs. “Honestly, it’s because I care about it and you’ll always make time for what you care about — I don’t care who you are. I feel like we have a greater purpose. I’m going to follow my purpose and not sell myself short in that aspect, because I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice — as well as everyone else that I could be impacting.”
A preseason first-team All-ACC honoree from multiple outlets on a Duke team with high expectations for the 2023 college football campaign, Carter’s on-field impact is apparent. Yet his off-field impact is ultimately more impressive, if less obvious from outside of Wallace Wade Stadium and the Durham community.
