“You just put your fists up and bumped fists.” “We didn’t have a name for it,” Carter told me over the phone recently. Scott would tell teammates that Carter was “worse than a mad dog.” In time, the nickname shortened to “Doggy,” and Carter channeled his enthusiasm into another act: the pound, a greeting more commonly known now as the fist bump. That season, he earned the nickname “Mad Dog” when he bit teammate Ray Scott in the shoulder during a drill in training camp. In an eight-year career that stretched across three franchises, he built a reputation as a springy, high-energy point guard, the kind of athlete that teammates said could play in any era.
As a rookie, Carter says, this was his job. He can recall wanting to hype up his teammates, to get them excited in the moments before the game. He didn’t realize he was pushing sports into the future.Ĭarter can remember bumping fists with Unseld and then doing the same with Gus Johnson and Earl Monroe. And considering it was 50 years ago, that’s not surprising. Carter, 75 and retired, cannot remember the opponent or the date or even the city.
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