Former Hylton football standout Morgan Carter spends summer interning at the U.S. Supreme Court

They’d listen, perhaps cock an eyebrow and then in a skeptical tone question whether Morgan Carter was telling the truth.

“Yeah, right, sure you did.”

That was the response the former Hylton High School football standout usually got when he told people he’d spent the summer interning at the U.S. Supreme Court. 

For those not sold on his word, Carter then tried to make his case by flashing open his cell phone and showing a picture. Even that was met with incredulous looks.

“They thought I photoshopped my head in,” Carter said.

Finally, Carter won them over by displaying another photo. If need be, he was ready to scroll down and show more images, but it never came to that. He had enough irrefutable evidence by that point to make himself credible.

Of course, when Carter looks back on how this all came to be, it even amazes him. So much so that he’s hard-pressed to say for sure how he got the internship in the first place.

It was certainly a case of knowing the right people and having recommendations put forth on his behalf.

But even then, Carter knows he was no safe bet to receive one of the 21 available internships from the thousands that applied for them.

“Honestly, it’s a miracle,” said Carter, who carried a 4.0 grade point average at Hylton.

The opportunity to spend the summer at the U.S. Supreme Court marked a point of departure for Carter, who began college with plans of becoming a doctor and studying bio-medical engineering.

But serving as a volunteer this past year in Atlanta by working at drug rehab centers and halfway houses as well as working with the homeless, Carter decided he wanted to focus on a career path that would allow him to help those in need like the ones he met.

“It’s a terrible thing to see and it touched me personally,” Carter said.

Carter said his parents pushed him to find time for community service, something that he had not done much with since he arrived at college. Balancing football and academics took up enough of his time.

Carter originally signed with Rutgers University for football before transferring to Georgia Tech for the fall of 2010.

Carter opted for the move in large part because of Georgia Tech’s engineering program, which is ranked No. 1 for African-Americans.

The chance to play for the Yellow Jackets also united him with head coach Paul Johnson, who recruited Carter when Johnson was at Navy, and defensive coordinator Al Groh, who recruited Carter out of Hylton when Groh was the head coach at Virginia.

A linebacker, Carter left on good terms with Rutgers, but felt he needed a change.

But as he got back in to the flow of things, he realized, courtesy of his parents, that football and academics were not enough. He had to do more when it came to community service.

“My mom would ask me, ‘What have you done?’ Carter said.

As an intern at the U.S. Supreme Court, Carter was privy to a lot of the inner workings. He got to sit in on hearings and got to meet the Supreme Court justices. He was also in the courtroom when the court ruled on the Wal-Mart sexual bias case and when it ruled on the late Anna Nicole Smith’s attempt to secure money from the estate of her former husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall.

With a clearer sense of what he wants to do in the future, Carter has changed his major to business and pre-law and plans to take the LSATs in the spring to get ready for law school.

In the meantime, he continues to play football.

He’s a red-shirt sophomore for the Yellow Jackets who will be used primarily on special teams. Carter is keeping his options open if for some reason a professional football career beckons. He’d be thrilled by the opportunity to join his cousin, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, in the NFL. A first-round pick in the April 2011 NFL Draft, Ingram is currently with the New Orleans Saints.

But Carter won’t be disappointed if that fails to work out.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go to the NFL,” Carter said. “If it happens, I will take it. But if it doesn’t, I’m OK with that because I have another focus and that’s law school and becoming a lawyer.”

Sports editor David Fawcett can be reached at 703-530-3911