Malcolm Cater back in football: Ex-Riverhead star linebacker determined to ‘make it right’

At 16 years old, during a fight at a house party in Wyandanch in 2007, Malcolm Cater was struck with a bullet in back of his leg; little did he know that that bullet would forever change his often-troubled life.

Today, he looks back in an interview with RiverheadLOCAL — and most importantly, looks forward.

You could hear it faintly in the background during the interview.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Yes, Malcolm. OK. It’s OK. What’s wrong?”

His son babbled something and started to cry.

“All right, one second.”

He put the phone down.

“One second. Here you go. Here’s your blankie. Go watch TV OK?”

It’s moments like these Cater missed while he was incarcerated following a drunken mistake that nearly cost him his dream – his dream of making it to the NFL.

“I have to repair my name now,” he said. “I have a son named Malcolm Malik Cater and I have to fix my name so that he’ll be good in life. Just seeing him smile makes me want to make things happen. I need to be a provider.”

After a 2008 court order landed Cater in Riverhead at the Timothy Hill Children’s Ranch for a fresh start, he quickly joined the football team and within months, he was widely known as one of the most aggressive, hard-hitting linebackers on the island. Riverhead won the Long Island championship that year, a first in team history.

“When I came to Riverhead, so many great things happened to me so quick,” Cater said. “I embraced it and I loved it. I was a great teammate and loved playing for Riverhead.”

He earned the Hansen Award his senior season at Riverhead, given to the county’s best player. He also won the Collotta Award, presented to Suffolk’s best linebacker. He tallied 103 tackles that season, including 16 for a loss. He was named MVP of the Outback Steakhouse All-star classic, a New York high school football all-star game. But the biggest award of them all was a full scholarship to Syracuse University.

Success in Syracuse: ‘I blew it’

Cater played in all 12 games for the Orange his freshman season, totaling 13 tackles and one sack. He got the majority of playing time on special teams and gained the nickname “Clothesline Cater” because of the helmet shattering hits he delivered. He was set to start at middle linebacker his sophomore season.

But as fast as the success came, failure soon followed suit.

“I wanted it all right away,” Cater said.

The news spread quickly: Cater had been arrested while the Orange were preparing for their season-concluding bowl game. He was subsequently dismissed from the team. Syracuse police said in a press release that Cater burglarized three apartments. He was arrested in his apartment after police investigated a report early one snowy December morning in 2010 that a “suspicious person carrying a large television set” entered an apartment at Cater’s address. Footprints in the snow led officers to Cater’s door.

“I was sitting there thinking it was my first charge ever,” Cater said. “The worst I should get is probation and I was sitting there minimizing my mistake. That was my problem.”

The DA offered him probation but the judge wanted him to do jail time.

“I wrote a letter to the judge,” Cater said. “I did everything I could but they made an example of out me. They made an example for every kid that goes to college and feels they have the entitlement to do what they want to do. So to get slapped on the wrist? Nah, that doesn’t happen.”

He had to face his punishment. In October 2011, he was sentenced to one to three years in the state penitentiary.

“I blew it,” Cater said. “I blew a $250,000 scholarship for something so stupid. It still bothers me to this day.”

Cater was given a choice: either serve the full time in jail or go to Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Mineville, N.Y. which would lessen his sentence. He chose the “shock camp” in a heartbeat. He bounced around from facility to facility until the platoon opened up for him at Moriah. The “shock camp” was a military-style, minimum-security facility for nonviolent criminals. Physical training was part of everyday life as was academics and counseling.

“It’s just like the army,” Cater said. “They dog you everyday. Drill instructors screaming in your face, you’re running six miles a day, you’re working hard every day. You woke up at 5:30 a.m. and went to bed at 9:00 p.m.”

While he was there, he received letters from kids, fans and friends who said that they believed in him which kept him going but ultimately the mental pain of his actions started to seep in to his psyche.

“I was down in the dumps for about six or seven months,” Cater said. “But I had to forgive myself before anyone else did.”

Against the odds, a second chance

His coach at Syracuse, Doug Marrone, visited Cater from time to time along with several other coaches to see how he was doing. Cater didn’t want to give up on his dream; he refused to become a statistic. He wanted to get back on the field of which he seemed to always belong. He wanted to go back to Syracuse and make things right.

“It wasn’t an evil mistake,” Cater said. “I wasn’t thinking. I was a little drunk that night. It was dumb. It hurt me a lot. It hurt a lot of people because through this process I had no idea so many people believed in me. I wasn’t aware of how many kids believed in me, how many people wanted to see me succeed and letting them down bothered me a lot.”

And the coaches agreed. Cater would get a chance to return to the Orange following his sentence. He was paroled June 7, 2012 and the next day he received a call from one of Syracuse’s assistant coaches, Michael Muehling. Muehling told Cater that he just received the head coaching job at Hudson Valley Community College, a junior college near Syracuse. In order for Cater to return to Syracuse, and all of the coaches for the Orange agreed, he would have to stay out of trouble, handling his business on and off the field.

Cater was ecstatic. This was his second chance to prove everyone wrong.

He cried before his first game on the sidelines. He couldn’t believe that he made it back to the football field so quickly. Though Hudson Valley was struggling to get wins, Cater was out there making plays. His third game of the season, he had 12 tackles, two interceptions and three tackles for loss.

“His tape pretty much recruits itself,” Coach Muehling wrote in an email. (See tape here.)
Watching his dream dissolve

But as the 2012 season progressed, his plan to go back to Syracuse fell apart. Coach Marrone accepted an offer to become the Buffalo Bills head coach and so the offer to return that was once there, disappeared. The news hit Cater hard, he didn’t even finish the season for Hudson Valley. His grades fell as a result and he was put on academic probation. He had interest from Division I schools like Buffalo, Toledo and Temple but once they saw his grades, no offers came through.

Cater lost his financial aid and another chance slipped away. He sat out the following semester.

With a family to take care of, he had no choice but to get a job and start making ends meet. He had bills to pay. Cater and his girlfriend, Danielle Wallace, worked day and night. He worked at Best Yet, 7-Eleven, and a few other places as his mistakes started to weigh on him.

“My girl had to move out of her mom’s house and I went and got an apartment,” Cater said. “I was working a 9-5, being a regular Joe. And after doing that for awhile, I told my girl, ‘Baby, this is not the life I want to live, I need to get a scholarship, I need to make it happen right now or there’s going to be problems down the line.'”

Tough love from a wise man named Solomon

His uncle Solomon, who attended every single Blue Waves game and was pretty much his father figure for his entire life, put things in perspective for him.
“This is what my uncle said, “When you’re 25 years old, you’re going to be mad at the world working behind a garbage truck saying that you should have did this you should have did that or why I did this or why I did that.’ So all that sunk in and I needed to get it together.”

Last year, Cater made a decision to take summer courses at Hudson Valley and paid out of his pocket. It was his only chance to get himself back to where he wanted to be: the football field.

“I had three paths the way I see it,” Cater said. “Become a regular Joe, go back to school or just become a statistic. I had to make things right.”

Cater took two summer courses. He needed a certain GPA to regain financial aid eligibility and to get reinstated from academic probation. He aced them. In both courses, he earned an A.

“My girl was there for me the entire time,” Cater said. “She kept pushing me to do well. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

He got off academic probation, received his financial aid and was even reimbursed for his summer class payment. He enrolled in regular classes the fall semester. Though he didn’t play on the football team, he took mental reps.

“I’m a Google master,” Cater said. “I was watching as many games as I could; watching how plays unraveled, watching what each position did, calling plays out before they happened.”

Understanding what it took to succeed during the summer, he was determined to get the same grades for the fall. But once again he was smacked in the face with adversity. He was almost through the semester when he got word that could easily tear down any person: his mother had died unexpectedly. The news crushed Cater but it was just another obstacle he needed to overcome. He still finished out the semester and out of the five classes, he earned four As and one B.

“It was hard on me,” Cater said. “But I had to break down what’s important. My Uncle Solomon gave me tough love. He said ‘Malcolm, I won’t do anything for you until you do something for yourself.’ And once he said that, reality really sunk in. I had to grasp it. I had to be a man.I have my own family. Every tough decision I would call him to bail me out and that was over with.”

Cater’s quest to return to the gridiron

With his grades up, he asked Coach Muehling what would be the best option to go forward. They both decided that Division II should present the best opportunity for him to make it to the next level. He could get more offers to consider and make the choice that best suited him and his family. Muehling sent out 100 emails to the top Division II schools across the nation that day. And over the course of the two days, Cater had 75 voice mails on his phone.

“It was amazing,” Cater said. “I was hyped. I was excited.”

There were a few schools that really stood out to him. Among them were Charleston University, Henderson State University, West Texas A&M University and West Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

“A lot of powerhouse Division II schools called me and said that they had a lot of people go to the league and it was very exciting talking to all of those schools,” Cater said. “Henderson State, they won their conference and they lost in the third round of the playoffs. I was really set to go there because of their record. But I really broke it down. I did my homework. I looked at how many seniors each team had and how many sophomores and juniors were playing. So when I saw Charleston, and I saw their record of 6-5 I wasn’t sure at first but then realized that they got that record with a bunch of sophomores and juniors.”

“They already had their wakeup call,” Cater continued. “A lot of kids out there were probably not ready to play but now next year they will be ready. So I put that all in perspective. Charleston was the first team to contact me while I was playing for Hudson Valley and stayed in contact with me through the process.”

Each of the aforementioned schools offered Cater a full scholarship. But Cater needed something more.

“I have a family,” Cater told them. “I have responsibilities and I cannot leave anywhere without my family.”

“They all were aware of my situation and were ready for me to sign on the dotted line to take my family in with me,” Cater said.

He settled on Charleston University in West Virginia because it’s a little closer to home. He wanted to be able to visit family without it being too big a deal. He has taken trips back and forth by way of plane or bus.

“The bus is a little cheaper,” Cater joked.

Cater signed the letter of intent Dec. 18.

The day he signed, he received a call from the school’s president and athletic director.

“When it comes down to it, I have no room for error now,” Cater said. “When I got the full scholarship, I got a call from the president of the university and the athletic director and they wanted to see where my head was at. They wanted to see if they could invest in me. So basically, the head coach at Charleston University put his job on the line for me because he believed in me and thought that I could be an All-American linebacker and he sees me playing at the next level, either the AFL or NFL. I mean I broke down into tears talking to him. Him believing in me, the same way that everybody else believed in me at Riverhead and me knowing that is something that I have to hold and take advantage of.”

He’s moved to West Virginia and has been preparing for the upcoming season, practicing with his team; he can’t wait to officially put his name in the stat book again.

“It’s crunch time,” Cater said. “I have to make it happen now. I won’t stop until I get to where I want to be. If I don’t do it for myself. I need to do it for my family.”

The 6’2 linebacker weighs 248 right now.

“A 9-5 job and sitting on the couch will do that to you,” Cater laughed. “But I’ll get down to 230-235 before the season starts.”

He has already set goals for himself: record 150 tackles, 20 tackles for loss and five sacks. But most importantly, the only stat that really matters in Cater’s eyes is the grade at the end of the semester. You can’t be an athlete if you don’t have the academics to back you up at the collegiate level and he fully understands that.

And as far as making another mistake? He has no worries.

‘God has a plan for me’

“It’s like this,” Cater said. “God has a plan for me because I did things that I’m not proud of and I had to get through things that were very hard and God hasn’t gave up on me yet and I won’t give up on myself,” he said.

“Nothing will stop me from doing what I want to do in my life,” Cater continued. “Even if I don’t make it to the next level, I will be a coach. I will be able to show kids what I learned through all the years. But I’m not going to stop until I’m 27. I’m not going to stop trying to get into the league until I’m at a certain age when I can say OK it’s over now, let me get a job and start coaching. Until then, I’m 22 years old you know, and I’m ready to make things happen. By the time I’m 24, I’ll be in the best shape of my life. I’ll be ready. I’ll be smarter, wiser, faster. When I play this year, I’m not just going to be playing middle linebacker, I’m playing for my family.”

Malcolm has a message for all the people in Riverhead who never gave up on him.

“I’m sincerely sorry for the people I let down through this process,” he said. “And I’m aware of the people that helped me get to Syracuse. And I just want to let people know that it ain’t over for Malcolm Cater. I can promise you that.”