At the end of Coach Ken Carter's speech, he had the Eisenhower Auditorium audience stand up, raise their arms above their heads, put their right hands on their hearts, and turn 360 degrees. He called it the Coach Carter experience.
"When anybody asks you 'how was Coach Carter's presentation?' " Carter said, "here's what you you're going to tell them: 'He made me rise to my feet, raise both of my hands, he touched my heart, and he turned me around'."
Carter spoke last night in Eisenhower Auditorium to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He is known for locking his undefeated Richmond High School basketball team out of their gym when some of the team members let their grades slip.
In Richmond, Calif., Carter said a person is 80 percent more likely to go to jail than to college and that 50 percent of high school freshman never graduate but that 100 percent of seniors he has coached have gone to college.
Carter told the audience he had the secret to life, and after pacing the floor for a while, he told them what it was.
"This thing we call life," Carter said, "you need to live it because you can't get out alive."
He offered bits of motivational advice such as "don't make excuses," "come early, and stay late," and that a goal is just "a great idea with a deadline."
Carter said students should write their dreams down on a piece of paper because then they are 10 times more likely to come true. He said when he was 7 years old, he came home one day to find his mom crying. He said he took a piece of paper and wrote down a promise to his mother. His promise was that someday they would make a movie about him, and he'd buy his mother a big house and pay all her bills.
"Did I pay off all her bills?" Carter asked the audience. "No. She's an expensive girl!"
In a press conference before the speech, Carter talked about the movie that was made about him and his Richmond basketball team -- Coach Carter. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed Carter in the 2005 movie.
"I tell people in four months of shooting the movie, Mr. Jackson never stumbled on a single line," Carter said. "He is a true professional. He is taller than I am, but people say I'm better looking."
Before Carter spoke, Penn State President Graham Spanier spoke in between some student performances. He thanked the students who participated in the MLK Day of Service and said it was "the perfect way to continue Martin Luther King's message."
The performances featured student/singer Christina Harrison; student dance groups NOMMO Dance Company, Orchesis and Tapestry Dance Company; three brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha, Martin Luther King Jr.'s fraternity; and a cappella group Essence of Joy.
Corey Wallace (senior-music performance) said his parents had told him many of the things that Carter had said, but the message was real to him this time.
"Things like holding yourself accountable," Wallace said. "You hear that from your parents, but hearing it again kind of made me want to do that. I'm going to do that, like, tonight after I leave."
Another student, Rebecca Prosper (junior-crime, law and justice), said she particularly liked Carter's idea that "opportunity knocks, but it doesn't pick locks."
Collegian staff writer Jessica Turnbull contributed to this story.
