Some may look at a football program coming off a 1-9 season and see a perennial loser, a program that has lost its legs and a tune-up game on future schedules.
Not for the Carter brothers. They see an opportunity that extends beyond Friday nights on the field.
Mark and Marcus Carter have established quite the reputation in Arizona high school football. The brothers have coached side-by-side throughout the greater Phoenix area for more than a decade.
The Carters have notably flipped the South Mountain football program from a 1-10 record in the first season in 2016, to 7-3 and an undefeated record against the 5A North region in 2019. They took their talents to Goodyear’s Desert Edge in 2020. There, they established a winning reputation, making the playoffs in each of their four seasons at the helm, including an appearance in the 2023 state championship game.
“We teach together, we coach together,” Mark said about his relationship with his brother, Marcus, in an interview over the phone. “It’s a beautiful thing … That’s one thing we pride ourselves on in the program. From Marcus all the way on down to the newest coaches, we model the behavior. We won’t ask the kids to do anything that we wouldn’t do ourselves.”
Now, after a brief stop in 2024 to coach high school football in Georgia at Griffin High School, the brothers are back in the Grand Canyon State for their next challenge: Maryvale.
“Getting back to Arizona with some unfinished business,” Marcus said. “Coming back to where our family and friends are, and coming back and being able to take over a program like Maryvale was very intriguing in a way that people say it can’t be done.
“My brother and I like to take on challenges, especially when the challenges are involving youth. We like to take those challenges on and make sure we do a good job and try to change as many lives as possible.”
The Panthers have gone without a winning season since 2010 and haven’t surpassed three wins in any season since 2016. Marcus, the coach of the program, is the seventh leader of Maryvale football since its last season above .500 in 2010-11 but he comes as a packaged deal with his brother.
After wrapping up their first spring camp with their new team, their initial optimism has only grown. The brothers already recognize players who could become pillars that the team can build around before the Panthers kick off a new era against Kofa on Aug. 29.
“It was refreshing,” Mark said. “When you get to a point in coaching where you get a bunch of athletes who have played football for a really long time or accustomed to our system for a long time, you take for granted the little things.
“What I mean by that is the teaching part. When everybody knows the system and everybody knows what’s going on, it’s just kind of plug-and-play. So to get back to a point where we’re able to start teaching again was very refreshing.”
The results on the field won’t change overnight as a new group of athletes works to master Carter’s system. Perhaps even more important, the Carters have to get the community on board with Maryvale again.
The dangerous reputation Maryvale has as a neighborhood and community has deterred parents from sending their kids to the school. The Phoenix police department saw a 2.02 percent increase in violent crimes in 2024, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, while the trend has remained mostly consistent over the last five years.
Maryvale has long been viewed as a significant source of the danger. Phoenix Police reports from May indicate the density of person offenses near Maryvale High School is moderately high, and even worse in surrounding areas.
Mark and Marcus believe success on Friday nights involves fixing Maryvale’s image first and keeping their players on campus.
“We also need to pour into the community to make sure that people understand that Maryvale is a great place where you can get challenged academically and athletically, and it’s a safe place to go,” Marcus said. “The unfortunate reality is that Maryvale has a bad stigma in the community (because) of things that happened 20-25 years ago.
“People know who we are, and they know what we’ve done everywhere else. They’re just hoping we can replicate what we did at other places here at Maryvale. Everyone loves a winner, so we have got to come out here and produce a good product and get people to come back.
Once people start coming back and the kids start seeing the support, that’s just going to make them play harder.”
That support and atmosphere starts in the weight room, where the Carter brothers welcome younger siblings of players and coaches with open arms. From every angle, players have a role model, providing “no excuse” for anyone to miss a scheduled visit to the lifting lab.
An alleged offseason recruiting violation cut the brothers’ time short at Desert Edge as both coaches stepped down in April 2024 and took assistant coaching roles at Griffin High. Upon their return to the Valley, the Carters explored several coaching job openings, but ultimately chose the Panthers.
“We tried for other schools, but schools were afraid, in a sense, because they feared backlash from people, I guess,” Marcus said. “Maryvale gave us an opportunity … We coached basketball there. So going back there and to help a community that hasn’t had a real opportunity to grow under prior leadership, made it intriguing for us because we’ve been here before.
“There’s no reason we can’t (rebuild) Maryvale. It’s just going to take a lot of support, a lot of love, a lot of trust, and honestly some good kids. That’s the part we have to control.”