Michael Carter has operated in the highest level of sports, winning a Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers and a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics – all in less than a year. No one else has done that.
But there is nothing quite like watching his daughter, Michelle Williams, compete in London in the shot put – same event as her dad.
“More nerve-wracking – watching my daughter,” Carter said. “There’s nothing I can do after [she goes onto the field]. It’s all up to her. She’s out there competing. I have to sit in the stands like everyone else.”
It might be anxious to watch his daughter, but it has been rewarding, too. Carter still holds the national high-school record in the event, which he broke by more than nine feet in 1979. His daughter duplicated the feat, setting the national high-school shot put record for women in 2003. Both records still stand.
“For me to beat him, I’ve got to get gold,” Michelle Williams said Wednesday to Yahoo! Sports. “I can’t do anything about the Super Bowl rings.”
Williams was 15th in the Beijing Games four years ago and she is a long shot to medal in London. But she’s competing in the sport because she enjoys it, not because her father pushed her into it
“My dad always had us do what we wanted to do,” said Michelle, whose sister D’Andra is a former shot putter at Texas Tech. “We knew what he did, but he never pressured us to do what he did. . .… It just happened that I was able to be a national high-school record- holder like him and go on to college and going professional. ]
“It was rough at first [having him as a coach], but now that I’m older and I realize what I want to do and we’re on the same page, it’s a lot easier.”
