By Bill Bray
FREMONT– Ayden Carter entered his junior basketball season with 54 points to his credit as a varsity basketball player. Two seasons later the 6’4” senior has reached the mountain top to 1,000 points.
During his junior season, Carter came into his own as a scorer for the Little Giants. After the season was over, he was responsible for 446 points. He averaged of 19.4 points per game, his scoring, along with his consistent play at both ends of the court earned him Honorable Mention All-Ohio. He was also the Three Rivers Athletic Conference scoring champion.
He had his ups and downs as his senior season began. He had 30 and 32 points his first two games of the season but ran into, what was for him, a dry spell. After a single digit game and three or four more that were below his average, things needed to turn around if he was to achieve his goal. By the end of January, he was sitting at 823 career points. “I knew, at that point, I had to keep my foot on the gas,” the talented senior said. “Keep giving myself fuel and keep hooping it up every time out.” Pouring fuel into his 6’4” frame wass obvious as the season went on. Through the month of February which consisted of five games, he averaged 28.8 points per game to reach the magically 1,000-point plateau. During furious February, Carter indeed had ‘the pedal to the metal’ and scorched the nets with games of 25, 24, 31, 28, 32, 36 (a career high) and 26 points.
Senior Ayden Carter has been on a torrid pace to reach the 1000 point club at Ross. The mission resulted in a “slam dunk”.
Coach John Cahill was equally impressed with his stretch to accomplish his goal. “Ayden has played at a high level the last month in multiple areas. I was proud of him. He’s been impacting each game in fantastic ways.”
Coming with the accomplishment was being the first Fremont Ross boy’s player to ever score 500 points in one season, earning the TRAC scoring title for a second straight year and eclipsing, by 42 points, the season scoring record held by Fremont Ross All-Ohioan, Greg Bender. Bender’s playing days were 1982 to 1985. He now resides in Charlotte North Carolina where he is a corporate banker.
“First let me say that I am very happy for Ayden,” Greg said via a phone conversation earlier this week. “Personally though, if it were me, I would rather want to break the record versus Sandusky. It is always nice to do those kinds of things against them,” Bender said with a chuckle.
During the 1983 and 1984 season, Bender broke the career scorer mark, which he still owns, that had been held by Jim “Pete” Davis from 1961-1963. Another record that Bender owned was the single season scoring mark of 458 points. “It was very memorable, obviously, Bender said about breaking the career mark held by Davis. “I competed against him, during pick up games at Rodger Young Park during the summers,” Bender said remembering Davis. “Or maybe at the high school gym. He obviously was a very good guy.”
Carter has never gotten to meet the owner of the record he was pointing towards but does feel like he already knows him. “I hear about this Bender guy a lot,” Ayden said. “It is a real honor to go past him knowing what a great player he was in his day.” Bender was amazed that ‘his day’ was 38 years ago. “Man, that is hard to believe that that much time has passed. But really, it’s about time someone has broken a 38-year-old record. Records are made to be broken as they say.”
Bender continued. “You know when you are the leading scorer, other teams are always trying to stop you.” Bender explained. “If you don’t have other great scorers around you, the opposing coach is game planning to cover you. After you prove yourself, as Ayden did last season, I’m sure teams are throwing things at him. Different defenses, and because of that, it takes a good player to score consistently every night. Good players can have a 20-point game here and there, but to do it every time out is a tall task.”
The Ross senior has accomplished this ‘tall task’ and should have proven to himself now that he can accomplish anything he puts his mind to. But in interviewing Ayden Carter, it could be seen in his eyes that he never doubted his ability, for a second, to reach his goals.
Bender had a piece of advice for the young Carter as he gets his high school diploma and continues his academic and athletic careers at Walsh University. “Well, it’s a different level obviously,” Bender began. “Working hard to continue to get better. But if you work harder than anybody else and you focus on what you need to do and keep your head on straight, you will do just fine. The other thing I would say is, you probably aren’t likely to make a living going to the NBA. But he will go pro, but probably just not in basketball. You will be either a member of the corporate world or another professional career. Use those four years. There is no substitute for the experiences a college athlete goes through. You’ll learn to be disciplined, you will learn to work hard, you’ll learn to be a great teammate, you’ll learn to take instruction from coaches. If you can do those things and get your degree focusing on academics while you are doing it, you will end up having a good life and have a good job. People love to employ college athletes because they know all those qualities are there. You can always be a great player on the court but realize that the end goal is to be a great professional, no matter the occupation, and successful person in life.”