Redblacks receiver finally escaping fog
Carter slowly making way back from fourth concussion
EDMONTON — It was all coming together for Matt Carter.
The Ottawa Redblacks receiver went into training camp at the start of June on the heels of what he said was the best offseason of his six-year Canadian Football League career. He’d played in all 18 games for Ottawa in 2014 and had 41 catches for 551 yards. The 28-year-old from Kelowna was ready to build on that and help take his team out of the dregs of a 2-16 season.
The second Hamilton TigerCats linebacker Serderius Bryant made contact with Carter’s chin in the league’s first pre-season game on June 8, Carter felt it all coming undone again.
“When you’ve been hit that way more than once, you know that something is off or something is wrong,” Carter said. “So when I started making my way to the sidelines I knew ... that it wasn’t just seeing stars or having the ringing in my ear, I knew that I was concussed.”
Sitting on the six-game injured list for the Redblacks, Carter knows the feeling well.
This is his fourth diagnosed concussion in five years. Concussions ended his seasons in 2010 and 2011 when he played for the Tiger-Cats, with that second one being a struggle to get through. The way the sun flickered through the Burlington Skyway Bridge when he drove over it made him feel sick, he said while playing for the Eskimos in 2012.
This year’s concussion is a different animal. Carter said he felt like he was in a fog for two weeks in June and not improving.
“For the most part it feels like there’s a constant pressure in your head,” he said. “It feels like someone pumped air into your ear and you’re kind of in a foggy, dazed state of mind where I wasn’t off balance, but I just didn’t feel right.
“I was never at full speed, never at full awareness. It’s not a good feeling. You’re trying to be yourself. I like to be around the guys. I like to have fun and I like to enjoy myself, but it’s kind of a weird state of mind when you’re not fully healthy. You know something’s wrong so it’s more frustrating than anything.
“For whatever reason this one just shook me the most. I don’t know why, but it did.”
The good news is Carter said he’s starting to step out of that fog and finally starting to feel like himself again. While playing in every game last year gave him confidence that he could take big hits and stay in the game, the past month has made him think about his life and his career.
Inevitably, the question that many observers would ask came across the plate for Carter, too: How many concussions can or should one person sustain in their career?
“By no means am I walking away from football right now. My focus is on getting healthy,” Carter said.
But retiring is something he has thought about.
“I think anybody that’s been in that situation, you have to weigh all of your options and really put some thought into it,” he said.
Carter lives just outside of Edmonton, in St. Albert. He spent the off-season training with many of his former teammates, such as Calvin McCarty, Nate Coehoorn, Mike Reilly, Grant Shaw and Ryan King.
Reilly, the Eskimos quarterback, said concussions can differ from person to person and that while you can be concerned for a friend or teammate, the decision a player makes on his future is his alone to make.
“It’s not just a game for us, it’s our job. It’s our profession, this is how we pay our mortgages. This is how we put food on the table,” Reilly said.
“If you’re in another profession and people are talking to you in your 30s or late 20s and how you have to end that and start a new career, that’s a pretty daunting thing to think about. It’s no different for us, so you have to look at your long-term health and your long-term welfare, but you also have to look at your ability to provide for your family. There are a lot of factors that go into your decision.”
Carter said his family and friends are concerned for him and players from around the CFL have reached out to him in recent weeks. That includes Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker Shea Emry, a longtime mental health advocate around the league.
“My family’s concerned about me, everyone’s concerned about me and the (Redblacks) organization has been great as far as doing whatever they can to help me with whatever I need,” Carter said. “It’s been a slow process right now and getting healthy is the main priority.”