How weightlifting helped make Charlotte Latin’s Carson Clutter Observer football POTW
Carson Clutter has been going to school at Charlotte Latin since the third grade and he’s played football since the seventh.
He’s been waiting a long time to for this season.
An 18-year-old senior, Clutter is The Observer’s high school football player of the week for Week 0 of the high school season.
Players from Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Union, York and Lancaster counties are eligible, and Clutter won a week-long vote after leading Latin to a 52-20 win over Raleigh Ravenscroft on Aug. 16.
Clutter had 11 carries for 120 yards and three touchdowns. He credits a lot of his success to a dedication in the weight room that began in middle school.
“I’m not the biggest, but I’m fast,” said Clutter, who is 5-foot-10, 165 pounds and plays running back and linebacker.
“But I’m just as strong as they are. Working out and weight training are my absolute passion. I do struggle to get weight on my body. It’s definitely my mom’s genetics right there, but strength training is a major part of my life.”
Knowing he wanted to be a big part of Latin’s football team in high school, Clutter poured himself into working daily with a trainer in seventh grade. By his freshmen year, he began to train himself.
“I got to a point,” he said, “where I learned everything I needed to learn. My body changed a lot. My trainer’s got this picture of me in sixth grade wrestling and I look like a wet bird. Now the consistency has really helped me, and I think my mind changed more than my body, but doing it every day has created a habit of discipline.”
Now, Clutter writes out training programs at school for underclassmen, some of whom join him for before-school workouts. This season, he’s also taken on a bigger role on the team, starting at running back and linebacker.
In a 28-14 win at Mitchell Friday, Clutter had 11 carries for 45 yards and his fourth touchdown in two weeks. On defense, he had two tackles and a sack.
“He’s one of our strongest leaders and he had an extremely productive week (against Ravenscroft),” Latin coach Drew Dayton said of Clutter. “He carried the load for us in the run game and he was really excited that he was able to share those moments with his teammates. He’d be the first to tell you he didn’t do it himself.”
Dayton believes that Clutter can play college football at some level, and that’s something Clutter really wants too. It’s part of the reason he pushes himself so hard in the weight room.
“Last year made it difficult,” he said. “It was my junior year and I started some games (at linebacker) and was splitting time at running back, but we had a running back ahead of me so I couldn’t get the explosive plays I needed for my film, but I got great film (against Ravenscroft) and I’m looking forward to the next game. I really want to go to school for engineering and I’m looking for schools for football that have engineering where I can go and get a chance.
“All I need is a chance.”
Note: The Observer will write about its high school football players of the week each week. To view this week’s nominees, click here.
This story was originally published August 27, 2024 at 7:00 AM with the headline "How weightlifting helped make Charlotte Latin’s Carson Clutter Observer football POTW."
