Vince Carter transitioning into his second career
By Chris Mckee
Raptors legend Vince Carter appears to be transitioning into a second a career and has been receiving rave reviews.
The oldest active player in the NBA is former Raptor legend Vince Carter. The 40 year-old recently signed a one-year $8 million dollar to play the upcoming season for Sacramento and will act as a mentor to a core of talented young players on the Kings roster.
Carter will turn 41 in January and the eight time all-star and Olympic gold medalist appears to be beginning his transition into a post basketball career; broadcasting.
Carter was doing colour commentary as an analyst for NBA TV during the NBA Summer League and appeared to be a natural fit in that role. He has done some TV work in the past in Memphis when he sat out with an injury and has been receiving rave reviews for his work as an analyst on NBA TV.
It isn’t very often that an athlete is allowed the opportunity to gracefully transition into a second career.
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Most athletes have spent their entire life with one single focus and that is the sport they dedicated the first 25 or 30 years of their lives to. All of a sudden that gets taken away from them either by injury or getting cut and most are left wondering what in the world they are going to do next.
Vince is one of the rare athletes who has prepared himself with several options once his playing days are done. He has mentioned in the past that he has an interest in getting into coaching or broadcasting once he is done with basketball.
There are boat loads of ex-players who think they’re going to slide right into the booth but only a handful have done it well.
Two former NY Giants in Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan began working in TV and radio while they were still active players in the NFL and both ended up cutting their playing careers short because of TV opportunities available to them.
Tim Tebow just re-signed with ESPN to continue working on the SEC Network covering college football and he is still playing professional baseball in the NY Mets organization. Canadian Jesse Palmer had offers to continue as a back-up QB in the NFL but opted to pursue his TV career as an analyst and play-by-play announcer for ESPN which followed his appearance as The Bachelor on ABC.
Dare I mention OJ Simpson as another athlete who made a successful transition into broadcasting while he was still playing football.
For many Raptors fans, it’s hard to imagine the Vince Carter who was often moody and immature in the later stages of his time in Toronto becoming such a leader on his team and transitioning into a quality broadcaster in the process.
There is an old saying about how as we get older our bodies get shorter but our antidotes get longer. That should serve Carter well if he chooses to move into a career as an NBA analyst.