Honest. Humble. Habitual.
This is how teammates and coaches describe Coppell senior cornerback Seth Carethers.
Carethers began playing football when he was 6. However, he did not start playing cornerback until his freshman year after playing running back and wide receiver at Coppell Middle School East.
Entering high school, he was told that he should switch positions. Rather than complaining, he took it in stride to improve his game.
“For him switching was seamless,” Coppell cornerbacks coach Abubakar Conteh said. “Athletically he had what it takes, and sometimes it helps you when you’ve played the other side. When a guy is trying to attack you, you get a sense of how to counteract that, and he took full advantage of that.”
From a young age, Carethers’ parents instilled the values of discipline and respect, a trademark of who he is today.
“If I had a daughter and she brought Seth home as her boyfriend, I would be very pleased,” Conteh said. “He’s a well put together young man, very respectful and quiet but not too quiet. I see him messing around with his teammates all the time so clearly he knows how to have fun, but when he’s working in between the lines, you can see the focus and the determination to get accomplished.”
Though one might not be able to tell, football was not always his favorite. His first love was soccer, playing as a midfielder until he made the B team in seventh grade.
“As soon as I started practicing, football felt different,” Carethers said. “Once I made the B team, I wanted to focus and play at the highest level I can for as long as I’m playing this game.”
Making the B team was a pivotal moment in Carethers’s young career, inspiring him to work harder. That year, he began working with skills trainer Christian White.
“He has become very physical and very confident,” White said. “He has started to really trust himself. He put in hours of work and it’s starting to show more week in and week out.”
Carethers hard work paid off after his junior season with scholarship offers. The pinnacle of his summer, however, came in July when he visited Wake Forest for a camp.
“After the camp, I connected with the coaches and they gave me a tour of the campus and the athletic facilities which caught my eye,” Carethers said. “I was talking with the coaches before I went to the camp and they were very straight up with me; they told me how many spots they had. It was a school that I was really looking into and once I started talking to the coaches I knew if I got that offer, it was going to be my top school.”
A week later, Carethers received a scholarship offer.
“It was really great,” Carethers said. “I had come back to Texas by then and the coach actually called my parents first. They kept it a surprise until I got home and told me. It was a big celebration. I’m definitely excited for the new culture because college football is a lot different from high school football. I’m ready to adapt to that.”
Though excited for the future, Carethers has goals to achieve as a high school player.
“We knew before coming into this year we were going to have to come together and it’s on us how far we go into the season,” Carethers said. “I need to stay locked in with my eyes on the prize of playing deep in the playoffs and eventually competing for a state title but I am proud to be on this team, proud of the work we’ve done and how far we have come. It shows how special we are, going up the years as we have, everyone knew that we would someday put on a show as seniors and that’s what we’re doing.”
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