Ex-Dallas Cowboys QB at peace with past as he helps others avoid his mistakes

Quincy Carter is fully aware of all of it, and he runs from none of it.

He’s 47, and this is who he is. Good, bad, left, wrong and right.

He is a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who is one of the few men on earth to have started an NFL playoff game for that franchise, and he’s one of millions of addicts who live in recovery. Although he has not played an NFL game since 2004, he did just enough in the league to still have recognition from his playing career to be a “name.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Carter was the keynote guest of the Recovery Resource Council’s “Stars in Recovery Luncheon” at the River Ranch in Fort Worth’s Stockyards. It would be hard to find a better speaker for this event than Quincy Carter, who now lives in his native Georgia where he coaches, mentors and runs his own foundation.

“Q” is no longer worried about what he should have done 20 years ago. For the rest of his life he will be a fascinating sports figure; a two-sport athlete at Georgia who was a second round pick of the Cowboys, pushed into the starting lineup as a rookie who eventually led the team to the playoffs in 2003 under Bill Parcells.

Addiction got Q, and while he should have been an NFL quarterback for a good eight to 10 years, there is nothing he can do about any of what was. And there is even less he can do about what anyone thinks about him.

“I am where I need to be, and that’s first with God,” Carter told the Star-Telegram on Tuesday before the event. “Before, I had a good understanding of God, but I didn’t have an understanding of God’s will.

“Did I use God’s talents? I did, but I had somewhat half-hearted relationship with God.”

Quincy Carter’s ‘Why”

Carter said he is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and follows their 12-step recovery process. One of his sponsors is former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson.

Carter is a grandfather now, and has seven children who live in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, North Dakota and Mississippi.

“Six moms,” he said. “It ain’t personal. I tell it.”

Carter returned to Georgia where he now runs his own foundation, and coaches young people and players. His approach with the kids, who range from middle school to college, is to just tell his truth. Unvarnished. No trick photography, or Instagram filters to make it look pretty.

He was an NFL player who used drugs, and it derailed his career.

“I put a lot of work in and I drove myself to be that guy on the field but when I came off the field I started that weed thing,” he said.

One detail to Carter’s time with the NFL that most people didn’t know, or forgot, was that under Parcells, Carter put in the time. He worked at it; he stayed late, studied film, and in 2003 he was an improving NFL quarterback with a future. Maybe not Tom Brady’s future, but a future.

“I had picked up the weed thing my first couple of years when I played minor league baseball, and it followed me to college and into the NFL,” he said. “I had a secret life going on. I would sit here and say, ‘Oh, thank you Lord,’ and then going out and doing things I had no business doing.”

And that went well beyond a marijuana joint.

His aim now is to deter any kid from trying any of it, even if it is legal. Because even if it’s legal, it can be lethal.

“The epidemic we are dealing with now is that you can’t get any clean marijuana because it has fentanyl and all of these other substances it,” Carter said. “That’s the worst part of it. I went from what someone might call ‘a stoner” to ecstasy to cocaine, and it all led me down that road.”

Carter’s concern about the legalization of marijuana

In the last decade America, and the NFL’s, position on marijuana has shifted from “Just Say No” to all things weed to widespread legalization. Despite its legal state, Carter does not consider marijuana to be in the same classification as a can of Miller Lite, or a box of thin mints.

It’s still a drug.

“My friends say it all the time, ‘Marijuana is a mind-altering substance.’ Whatever that feeling is, or the relief it provides, it’s mind altering,” he said. “You are at some point hallucinating, not at the great end of the spectrum of it but there is that aspect to it.

“And now you don’t just have to smoke marijuana. You can drink it, rub it in, whatever. I am so blunt about what got me in trouble and all of this ‘candy’ is that is being handed out, it’s fentanyl. They smoke these vape pens, they’re getting it in elementary school. It’s so prevalent, so I don’t hold back about any of it.”

Carter’s hope is to convince a young person to just avoid all of it; he is all too familiar with the potential destinations from these habits.

It’s why he conducts coaching clinics, and camps. It’s why he will show up at events, such as the one on Tuesday in Fort Worth’s Stockyards.

His story is his story, and he can’t do anything about the previous pages but maybe in sharing his experiences he can help someone write a better version of their own.