The name first became a buzzword on the youth league fields around Brainerd, Dalewood and Harrison, with stories of the pint-sized phenom’s dynamic athletic ability soon extending as far away as Dalton.

Given to him by his mother, who referred to her toddler as her “little

Boo,” the nickname was catchy.

The youngster known by the nickname was impossible to catch.

Effortlessly shifting — and excelling — from one sport to the next as the seasons changed, by the time Boo Carter was 9, he was a known commodity in the Chattanooga-area sports community as coaches, parents and other children his age recognized the only thing more unique than the name was the talent that separated him from his peers.

“Boo has been the guy people talked about as the next great athlete

in Chattanooga for a long time, but he was also the most driven kid I ever worked with,” said Efrin Stewart, who has coached youth league football in Chattanooga for 43 years, mostly with the Brainerd Bills.

During that time, Stewart has had a half-dozen former players go on to pro football careers, including twins Daniel and Josh Bullocks, who were high school stars at Hixson before becoming All-American defensive backs at the University of Nebraska. Both were later selected in the second round of NFL draft.

“Before he joined our team, there was one game where he beat us pretty much by himself,” Stewart said of Boo. “I overheard him telling one of his coaches after the game, ‘I’ve got to get better,’ and that stuck with me. I mean, here’s a 9-year-old who was the best player on the field saying he’s got to get better because he didn’t like that our team had some guys that challenged him.”

The combination of rare talent and relentless work ethic helped mold him into one of the highest-rated college football prospects the Chattanooga area has ever produced. According to Rivals.com, the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Bradley Central star is the nation’s No. 53 overall prospect — No. 1 in Tennessee — for the class of 2024.

That level of acclaim, along with growing up in the glare of the social media spotlight — which previous prep prodigies such as the Bullocks twins, Red Bank’s Gerald Riggs Jr. and Ridgeland’s Vonn Bell did not have to contend with — also makes him the area’s most widely recognized teenage athlete.

During an on-campus visit to the University of Tennessee for last year’s game against Alabama, there was a surreal moment for Martels Carter Sr., who was Brainerd High School’s football coach at the time, and other adults who made the trip with Boo.

“He was part of this big group of high-level recruits they had visiting, and when all of those guys walked out on the field to look around before the game, the crowd started chanting Boo’s name,” said Carter, who is not related to Boo but was on the trip with his own son, Martels Carter Jr., a four-star prospect in the class of 2025. “He was the only one the fans singled out like that. It made the hair on my arms stand up when I heard thousands of people chanting ‘Boo!’ That was a crazy scene.”

LEADER OF THE PACK

Several years ago, when Martels Carter Sr. helped put together the traveling 7-on-7 summer league team known as the Wolfpack — arguably Chattanooga’s most impressive collection of young football talent ever — the idea was to showcase the special group to potential college scouts.

The roster read like a “Who’s Who” of the highest-rated local prospects currently starring on various high school teams — Martels Carter Jr., Marcus Goree Jr., Carson Lawrence, Kaleb Martin, Daune Morris, AJ Wallace, Tito Williams, Kireese Willis and Boo Carter.

“We’ve got a unique group of high school players from around Chattanooga right now,” Martels Carter Sr said. “Probably the most talent overall that I’ve seen, and all of them grew up playing together or against each other. But Boo is the alpha male, even in that group. He’s the guy all the other kids want to play with because they don’t want any part of going against him.

“If I’m in a room with all the top players across the country, I’m taking him first because I know if we’re in an alley fight, he’s got that dawg in him to stand with me and fight till the end,” the former Brainerd coach continued.

That group of players and a handful of others make up the largest number of highly sought-after college football prospects the Chattanooga area has ever produced. At least 20 players have scholarship offers from programs in Power Five conferences — the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern — including 13 that are either committed to or have offers from programs in the ACC, Big Ten or SEC.

But none have created the level of attention and fascination that Boo Carter commands.

Whether it was becoming the first local player to cash in on the TSSAA’s new rule allowing athletes to retain eligibility even while being compensated with a name, image and likeness deal, announcing his commitment to the Tennessee Volunteers last June from rap mogul Jay-Z’s swanky 40/40 Club in New York City — which was broadcast live to thousands across Instagram — or accepting a mid-September invitation from Colorado’s flashy Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders to attend the Buffaloes’ hyped game against Colorado State, each decision was either celebrated or scrutinized by multiple media outlets as well as rabid college football fan bases that want the explosive playmaker to join their favorite team.

“We’ve had a good number of big-time players come through our program, including four or five on this year’s team, but the attention Boo gets is just at a totally different level than anything I’ve ever experienced,” said Damon Floyd, who is in his 18th season as head coach of the Bradley Central football program. “Just the number of people, and I’m talking about grown men, who stand near our sideline wanting to get as close to him as they can is not normal.

“We’ll have media from one of those recruiting websites at practices and pretty much every game wanting to talk to him, plus a line of people wanting autographs and pictures after every game,” Floyd continued. “It takes him about an hour after a game before he can finally leave the field.

“Between that kind of obsession and the negativity you see sometimes on social media, it’s unreal to watch a teenager deal with it all.”

Although his on-field accomplishments have been documented extensively, the Chattanooga Times Free Press spent several weeks consulting with the people closest to Carter — family members, teachers, school administrators, teammates, and current and former coaches at various levels — to get a better grasp on the young man behind all the hype.

A STAR IS BORN

The journey to national recognition began on those youth league fields, then took off once Carter joined an up-and-coming Chattanooga Christian School program when he was in eighth grade. At Chattanooga Christian, he made such an impression that the Chargers’ veteran coach, Mark Mariakis, contacted Tennessee assistant Willie Martinez with one simple message: “We’ve got a kid in Chattanooga y’all are going to want to come see.”

“He’s the first and only eighth grader I ever brought up to the varsity,” said Mariakis, who during his time at Ridgeland coached Bell, a four-star sensation who went on to win a national championship at Ohio State and is a safety for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

“We just wanted to see how he would respond late in the season against older players, and let’s just say he more than held his own,” Mariakis said of the move up for the budding athlete. “By the next season, he started every game and never came off the field again.”

When Chattanooga Christian struggled through the first half of the 2021 season, scoring eight or fewer points in three of its first five games, Mariakis made a drastic decision to change the offense entirely, going away from the wing-T formation he had successfully utilized for each of his 35 seasons in favor of the I-formation, which would allow Carter to affect games more with his absurd athleticism.

The results were immediate as Carter, a spindly sophomore at the time, rushed for 226 yards on just 13 carries in a 57-point explosion against rival Boyd Buchanan. Chattanooga Christian went on to average 41 points over its final four games, and Carter’s recruiting stock soared.

By the time he began his junior year, he had scholarship offers from more than 40 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision — the upper tier of NCAA Division I competition — and quickly rose to the rare recognition of consensus four-star prospect, having received that rating from every major recruiting service.

It was at that point the spotlight widened to reach a much broader audience as Carter’s on-field exploits began circulating not just locally but nationally across social media.

A WELCOME TEAMMATE

Because of his fame, it was newsworthy when Carter withdrew from Chattanooga Christain last November and enrolled at Brainerd to finish out his junior year.

Because he had not played basketball at Chattanooga Christian, under TSSAA rules, he was immediately eligible in that sport at his new school and able to join an already talented Brainerd team. He soon earned a spot as a starting guard and eventually helped lead the Panthers to the Class AA state semifinals.

As with anyone whose life is deemed fit for public consumption, the line between reality and perception is sometimes hard to distinguish. The perception is that any teenager who is fawned over by adults — college coaches and fans alike — will carry themselves with an air of entitlement or arrogance.

The reality, according to faculty at Chattanooga Christian, Brainerd and Bradley Central, is that for all the on-field confidence he exudes, Carter — who said he plans to legally change from his birth name, Orlando, to Boo once this football season is over — is actually a shy teen who prefers to simply blend in with his peers when he’s not competing.

“When he came to our school, he never expressed that celebrity personality that you’d expect a kid who gets that kind of attention to have,” said Levar Brown, the athletic director and boys’ basketball coach at Brainerd. “He actually went above and beyond what you’d expect, just trying to fit in and not come across like he thought he was special.

“But we all saw that he was,” Brown continued. “You recognized right away that he could do things on the court that nobody else could. I’ve experienced kids with special talent before, but nothing like what Boo has. He’s also unique in that if he saw somebody else having a bad day, he would go to them and talk. He’s kind of an old soul that way, where he just seems to understand having empathy for others.”

Brown added that of all the memorable plays Carter made during his brief time with the Panthers, one stands out.

“We were playing Ooltewah, and I put my son in the game,” Brown said. “My son (Amari) was not a star by any means, but there’s a spot on the court where he’s really accurate. Boo drove to the basket and passed it out to my son, who was standing in his favorite spot. After Amari made the first one, I was calling for a different play, but Boo waved me off, like saying, ‘I’ve got this, Coach.’

“Boo kept running the same play, creating an opening, and Amari made four straight 3s,” Brown said. “Boo could have easily kept driving to the basket for a layup, but he recognized my son had a chance to shine, and he wanted to make sure he did.”

‘WHO DOES THIS KID THINK HE IS?’

Once basketball season ended, Carter and his family knew another transfer would be necessary before football season because of the TSSAA rule mandating student-athletes must move 20 miles from their previous school before being eligible to participate in a sport they played within the past calendar year.

Carter opted to enroll at Bradley Central, where several of his former summer league Wolfpack teammates were already on the roster.

Because of the hoopla that surrounded the star athlete, a perceived reputation arrived at Bradley before Carter ever stepped onto campus.

“We heard rumors last spring that this phenom was coming here,” said Lindsey Bell, who has taught drama and theater at Bradley Central for 17 years. “I knew who he was. I saw when he announced his commitment from New York, and I thought, ‘Who does this kid think he is?’ You give a teenager some otherworldly talent and expect them to balance it with humility, that doesn’t happen often. So I definitely thought he would come strutting in as this arrogant athlete.”

When Carter enrolled in the summer, one of the elective classes he signed up for was theater, where Bell quickly realized the new student did not resemble the persona she expected.

“I knew I had misjudged him on the very first day of class,” Bell said. “He turned the corner and immediately held out his hand as he approached and said, ‘You must be Miss Lindsey.’ Then he opened the door for me and took a seat at the front of the room next to the door.

“Since that first day of school, he’s been nothing but respectful in my class,” Bell continued. “He hand delivers every assignment, puts thought into his answers, and once the other kids recognized he was engaged, they all followed his lead. I have a wide range of kids in my class, from LGBTQ to the cheerleaders to the awkward kids, but by the end of our nine weeks of that class, Boo was friends with everybody. I absolutely adore him.”

Not only did Carter ace the class, he has also enrolled in Bell’s public speaking course to better prepare for interviews with the media.

Bell, who has taught numerous star athletes at Bradley Central through the years, said her 7-year-old son, Jacob, asked if he could meet some of the football players earlier this fall.

“I took him to the lunchroom one day when I knew all the older athletes would be there,” Bell said. “They nodded at Jacob, but you could tell they were all sort of in their own world. Except for Boo. He comes over, squats down to get on my son’s level, gave him a fist bump and says, ‘I’m Boo. How are you doing?’

“Jacob looked at him and says, ‘I know who you are. I’ve heard of you.’ And Boo smiles and goes, ‘I’ve heard of you, too.’ That just made my son’s whole day. Boo didn’t have to do that, but he chooses to see people and be kind. As much as what he does on a football field, that’s what people should know about him.”

‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’

Now a two-time semifinalist for the Tennessee Titans Mr. Football Award, which is given annually to the top player in each of the TSSAA’s nine classifications, Carter’s biggest strengths on and off the field are his versatility and the tireless work ethic instilled by his parents when he was young.

Believing they recognized peculiar potential at an early age, Carter’s mom, Shareca, coaxed the president of the Orchard Knob football league to allow her son to join a team when he was only 3, a year earlier than every other child. His dad, Terrence “Boonie” Holland, made sure to make time to coach Carter in football, basketball and baseball — which those who saw him swear was his best sport.

Shareca refused to allow her son to whine about being smaller than the other players, and Boonie instilled a time-worn sports adage into Carter’s mindset: Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

“When Boo talked about getting better as a 9-yearold, the way he went about that was to train harder and longer,” said Stewart, the longtime Chattanoogaarea youth football coach. “There’s so much pressure on that kid to live up to expectations, but he has a mom and dad who saw early on that he had the potential to be special, and they never allowed him to coast on natural talent. They pushed him to greatness.”

In his final high school season, Carter has compiled 1,227 all-purpose yards, a school-record 15 touchdown receptions and two touchdowns on highlight-reel punt returns. Defensively, he’s been in on 75 tackles (including four for loss) to help Bradley Central win a region title for the first time in 43 years.

Friday night, Class 6A’s No. 1-ranked Bears, now 11-0, will have a chance to advance to the state quarterfinals for only the third time in program history when they host perennial power Maryville (7-4), a region rival they beat 21-13 on Sept. 1.

The amount of talent on Bradley Central’s roster is staggering, particularly for a public school. Four seniors have committed to FBS programs, with Carter joined by quarterback Kaleb Martin (Miami, Ohio) and defensive backs Marcus Goree Jr. (Tennessee) and Tito Williams (Northwestern) in that group, while junior defensive back Mason Goree and junior running back J’Alan Terry already have offers from SEC programs.

Each week, though, Carter continues to stand out despite being surrounded by that level of talent, proving there’s plenty of substance behind all the hype.

With Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel on the sideline to watch the Bears against state-ranked Bearden two weeks ago, Carter showed out, totaling 120 yards with a touchdown and intercepting a pass in the end zone to help finish off the program’s first unbeaten regular season in nearly five decades.

All of which, according to one college coach, means the biggest question Heupel and his staff will face once Carter signs with the Vols in late December is which side of the ball to play him on.

“Personally, I want the ball in my hands,” said Carter, who scored seven touchdowns in a game last year. “With the ball in my hands, it’s something special. Other teams have to game plan for me, I know that.

“It’s hard to explain, but whatever sport I play, I’ve just always been able to feel or see what’s coming before it happens,” he continued. “It’s sort of like how some people who play chess can anticipate a move before it happens. I know I was given a gift, but I’ve also worked very hard to be where I am.”