Doctors said he'd never play football again. But now, he's a Fishers captain, starting LB.

FISHERS — Carter Imes did not record a tackle last season. He had no statistics. Zeroes across the board for the junior outside linebacker, who was listed all season as No. 41 on Fishers’ football roster.

To his teammates, Imes became “Coach Carter.” “You are still part of this football team,” Fishers coach Curt Funk told Imes, who helped coach linebackers during practices and games. But he was an athlete. From the age of 5, his self-identity was largely defined by competition in sports. It was where close friendships blossomed, forged by shared experiences.

Then, at age 16 … poof. Before the start of his junior year, Imes was told he would never play football again.

“I made up my mind right away that I wanted to stay with it,” Imes said of coaching. “I’ve met so many guys out there. I would call them all my brothers. I couldn’t walk away from the sport that easily.”

So Imes stayed with it, coaching, lifting weights, doing everything a player would do other than actually practicing and playing. A teammate once asked him why. Why put yourself through all of this with no possibility of a payoff?

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The answer was written all over his smiling face Friday night — senior night for Fishers — when he wore No. 41 again. Not only that, Imes started at outside linebacker. Voted team captain by his teammates and coaches.

“He was here every day with us, by our sides, cheering us on,” said Fishers quarterback Bennett Gorak, Imes’ close friend. “To see someone at their lowest (react that way) pushes me and pushes the whole team.”

***

The injury did not seem like anything major.

It was during intramural basketball season his sophomore year. Imes had made it through his sophomore football season, playing some varsity snaps, with no trouble. But while playing rec basketball, he started feeling some pain in his right calf and down to his foot. After bouncing around to a few different doctors, a physical therapist had Imes run up and down the stairs.

“His right foot was ghostly white,” said Carter’s father, Andy Imes.

More tests showed a major problem.

“They did a test where they put these cuffs and sleeves on my calf like they do for blood pressure on your arm,” Imes said. “They figured out there was only 40% blood flow to my right leg.”

The official diagnosis: popliteal artery entrapment syndrome. Basically, Imes’ right calf was pressing up against the artery behind his knee, which was causing blood flow problems, especially while he was playing sports.

“The doctor told us it was something he sees in 50-, 60- and 70-year-olds, but had never seen it in a young athlete,” Andy Imes said. “We weren’t sure what the diagnosis would be, but he came back and said, ‘You aren’t going to play contact sports.’”

Imes had surgery June 1, 2022, at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at Ascension St. Vincent. Due to blood clots in his lower leg and further testing, he spent a little longer at the hospital than expected. Dr. George Sheng rerouted the vein during surgery to allow the flood to flow to Imes’ lower leg, but Imes left the hospital fully expecting to never play football again.

“The vein graft was in a vulnerable spot and I didn’t the half the muscle mass to protect it,” he said. “(The thought) was that if I did get hit, I could possibly lose my leg.”

Almost immediately, Funk talked to Imes about staying with the team.

“It was just like, ‘Hey, you are still part of this football team,’” Funk said. “Your name is still on the roster and right now you are just injured. That’s what we would do for anyone else who is injured. I guess I was always hopeful (he could come back), but I never really believed it was a possibility.”

Imes was cleared to return to lifting weights and working out. Linebackers coach Keith Shelton gave him a whistle for practices and encouraged him to use it.

“I saw a future coach in him,” Funk said. “We trusted him to run drills when coaches were doing other things. We had faith in him that he could run a group.”

Admittedly, it was a little awkward at first. Imes had run through drills with his teammates for years. Now he was coaching them? But he had always been a team leader. He was just in a different role.

“I think I had some respect,” he said. “Of course I’m going to goof around with my buddies sometimes, but when it come down to it, I think they still respected me.”

He had more respect than ever from his peers. Gorak helped decorate Imes’ room for his return from the hospital after surgery. He knew how disappointed Imes was about not being able to play football anymore. “It hit me hard to see him down like that,” Gorak said.

His younger brother Graham, now a sophomore, was used to wrestling and antagonizing his older brother at home. “As a brother, you like to punk on each other,” Graham said. “I couldn’t do that for a while. I struggled with it because he’s such a big role model for me. It was hard.”

But Imes jumped into coaching. He didn’t miss a workout, either.

“He was the hardest worker in the weight room,” senior defensive end Brady Wolf said. “He never quit on the team. We called him ‘Coach Carter’ because at practice he was always there holding a clipboard. But he didn’t give up on anything. He loved the game and obviously he couldn’t move on. It broke his heart not to play. But he was committed.”

Though he couldn’t play football or intramural basketball, Imes decided to go out for track in the spring. It was a turning point for Imes, even if he didn’t realize it at the time. He wasn’t one of Fishers’ top runners, but competed in the 200 and 400 meters.

“It helped my mentality,” he said, “to see if I could perform at a sport again.”

Imes’ mother, Tracy Imes, sensed a change, a renewed sense of self in Carter during the track season. “The biggest thing is that he was an athlete again,” she said. “He was still doing football workouts and lifting weights, but you could see him having fun and smiling again.”

But the best, unexpectedly, was still to come

***

Andy Imes, a standout linebacker coming out of Lawrence North in 1987, had a similar story to his son’s. When he was a freshman at Indiana in the fall of 1987, he cracked a bone in his neck and never played again. His coach, Bill Mallory, encouraged him to stay on the team as a student coach.

“The first semester I didn’t play was horribly challenging,” he said. “But I became a student coach through the rest of my tenure at IU and into a graduate school for a bit. It was encouraging for me. I could see that with Carter, too. I coached my kids through rec and travel ball and football was obviously a favorite of mine. We talked more X’s and O’s last fall than we ever had before.”

It was just after track season, one year and one day after his surgery, when Imes went in to see Dr. Sheng for his one-year checkup. It went perfectly. At the end of the visit, Carter asked Sheng what he thought about him playing intramural basketball again. “I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Sheng replied. And then added, “You were a football player, right? I wouldn’t see any reason why you couldn’t play.”

It was a stunning moment for Carter and his parents, who were both there with him. None of them had even thought to bring up football, expecting it would be off the table.

“I’ve said to several people that I wish someone had a photo of our reaction,” Tracy Imes said. “We were shocked. There was joy and a feeling of like, ‘OK, the doctor brought it up and he’s OK with it, so let’s go.’”

Andy Imes called Funk as he was leaving the hospital to deliver the good news. The doctor said the way the leg had healed and created new blood vessels made him confident Carter could compete again. Carter sent a message to a group chat with several of his teammates. When he arrived in the weight room later that day, he was greeted to cheers and hugs from teammates and coaches.

“I feel grateful,” Imes said. “I prayed a lot about it, and I know other people did for me. I wasn’t expecting it. Not at all.”

Imes hit the ground running right away. His consistency in offseason workouts and participation in track paid off. On the first day with pads on this summer, he intercepted a pass from Gorak.

“First play,” Gorak said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Wow, he made an impact already.’ He’s going to make so many plays for our defense. He’s going to be all over the field with his speed.”

Imes’ comeback came full circle Friday night. He stood with his parents before the senior night festivities. “He gave us each a hug,” Tracy Imes said. “You could tell he was a little nervous, a little anxious. But I think he knew how big of a deal it was.”

The smile on his face said it all. Imes had a sack in the first half as Fishers rolled out to a big lead on the way to a 44-0 win over North Central. A year earlier, he had been encouraging his teammates with a clipboard and whistle. Now, they returned the favor.

“I felt so bad for him because he couldn’t play,” senior running back Khobie Martin said. “But he showed up every day and kept showing up. To see him come back it was like, ‘This season is about to be something different.’ Carter is about to show everybody. I’m so happy for him.”

Imes’ story, no matter what happens this season, is one Funk plans to use the rest of his coaching career.

“Ask any coach one word you want players to have and it’s toughness,” Funk said. “That’s what Carter Imes is. He’s just tough. He went above and beyond anything you’d expect. We talk about discipline, accountability and toughness and represents all three.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA football: Fishers LB Carter Imes returns after rare calf injury