OU free safety Quinton Carter gives back by starting nonprofit charitable foundation

Lifting up 4-year-olds to dunk a basketball?

Now, that is impressive.

"I wish I had more arms," he said as kids swarmed around him on the playground, "to pick everybody up at once."

The truth is, Carter is giving lots of people a boost.

He has founded a nonprofit charitable foundation that is changing lives not only in Norman but also back home in Las Vegas. He is mentoring at-risk kids. He is supporting in-need dads. He is doing football camps.

While athletes starting foundations is nothing new, most don't do so until they're in the pros.

Carter is still in college.

"I didn't want to wait until I got to the NFL," said Carter, a second-team All-Big 12 selection last season. "I feel this is something I have to do, something I'm supposed to do."

All of those awards like the Lowe's Senior Class Award and the American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team given out to good guys in college football?

Carter should be a shoo-in.

The reason he does what he does is simple yet profound.

And he does a bunch. Ever since arriving at OU four years ago, Carter has been involved with community service projects. He first got started doing work with the student-athlete service groups on campus, but it wasn't enough.

"I want to do more," he always said.

He started working with Community Action, a United Way Agency in Norman. He mentored kids, developed workshops, and donated gift cards and food to needy families.

It still wasn't enough.

He assisted with a mentoring program on campus. Signed up the football team for a green initiative. Worked for Habitat for Humanity. Volunteered with the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon to create visits for Las Vegas school children to Oklahoma City and the memorial.

But all the while, Carter had an even bigger vision. He wanted to start a charitable foundation. He'd even come up with a name — Serving Others through Unity and Leadership.

SOUL.

Then, while Carter was home for a couple weeks last summer, he started talking to his uncle about doing a youth football camp in Las Vegas. It's something they'd discussed before since both Carter and his uncle, a longtime youth coach in the city, had seen promising athletes who'd strayed down wrong paths and thrown away golden opportunities.

They wanted to do a free camp for underprivileged kids that would emphasize not only football skills but also life skills.

"Well," Carter's uncle finally said, "we might as well do it right now."

Two weeks later, they held the first Elevated Play Football Camp.

"It wasn't as organized as we wanted it to be that first year," Carter said, "but it went really well."

About 150 kids attended.

That event launched his charity, too. Since then, he's done another camp that drew more than 200 kids in Las Vegas, and he's started the Gaining Ground mentoring program for low-income families in Norman. That program began Father's Day weekend with an appreciation event for two single, young fathers.