One Wisconsin semi-pro football player is getting the chance of a lifetime — an opportunity to try out for an NFL team — all thanks to his biggest fan, his mother.
Nicole Carter believed so much that her twenty-one-year-old son Zac has what it takes to make it as a quarterback in the NFL, she mailed a demo-tape to every team in the league before a front office finally said they would fly him in for a tryout.
Carter, who only played one season of high school football at De Pere high school, didn't play in college, but he's done well enough in semi-pro football with teams in Green Bay and now in Two Rivers, to catch the eye of an NFL scout, finding out recently the team wants to give him a shot.
"I have never had this happen before," he said. "Honestly, I cried, just to get this opportunity."
Can you say Invincible?
Can you say Invincible?
Mom did all of the behind the scenes legwork to make it happen — all without the help of a well-connected agent.
"I taped all of his games, went on the computer, made a demo," she said. "Sent it to every single team out there."
The persistence paid off. Zac is getting his NFL tryout, but that might not be the biggest benefit of her being a sort of maternal fifteen-percenter.
"I've been fighting cancer," said mom. "And this has made my focus and my strength to get better even that much higher."
Carter is trying out for an AFC team in late June, though he doesn't want to say exactly which team publicly. He doesn't want to jinx it or risk upsetting the team's front office.
"Everybody's looking for the next Kurt Warner, said Marco Alfaro, the Manitowoc Co. Mariners head coach. "You know, Kurt Warner was stocking shelves at one point."
Mom has a simpler philosophy.
"Make it or don't make it, at least you made it this far," she said. "I don't know anyone else that can honestly say, I got to try out for an NFL team. In my books, he's already made it. He's a winner either way."
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