When Carl Howell left high school he had two strikes against him.
Some people thought he could not succeed in college as a student and some thought he could not succeed as a basketball player.
Both were wrong.
Not only did Carl succeed in both areas, he excelled in both.
When he ended his college career, academically he had made himself into an honors student and athletically he had made himself into an all-around basketball superstar who became a first team NAIA all-American and a fifth round draft choice of the USBL’s Atlantic City Seagulls.
Obviously St. Joseph’s (St. Joe’s) College basketball coach Rick Simonds thought enough of Howell’s talent to recruit him and when Carl arrived on campus, the coach undoubtedly hoped he had acquired an athlete who could potentially develop into an outstanding player for the Monks.
Little could the coach know just how much Carl Howell would develop during his four years.
Although — with the exception of the Maine Athletic Conference (MAC) championship game — his freshman year was by no means an indication of what was to lie ahead, Carl left little doubt in his next three years just how great a player the coach had recruited. After playing in a backup role as a freshman, Carl’s star began to shine in his sophomore year and his star burned brightest in the at St. Joe’s in his junior and senior years — both of which resulted in a MAC Player of the Year and numerous other award for the athletic 6-7 forward.
Howell went on to become St. Joe’s all-time leading scorer with 2,319 points and the leading rebounder with 927 in his career. In fact, he set over 20 records in total at St. Joe’s while leading the monks to a 4-year record of 95-18 and three trips to the NAIA tournament.
But basketball was not Carl’s only legacy in college, for he graduated with honors from St. Joseph’s College, where he majored in psychology and minored in sociology.
So Carl proved all of his critics wrong by making the grade in both athletics and academics. And, as you will hear, he takes great satisfaction and pride in doing that.
But why did some people think the way they did about Carl?
Well, when Carl was a youngster, he was perceived by some to be a problem child or at least a kid with an attitude — of sorts — and, as often happens, that reputation stuck with him throughout high school. In fact, Carl may not have ended up on such a successful the path through life if not for the special guidance he received in junior high.
Carl’s mother explained,
“They tried to test Carl, to put him in a category. He didn’t fit in the categories, but this gentleman, Kyle Littlefield, decided to take him under his wing and [even spent] his own time during the summer with him and I think it really made a big difference. I really believe it was a turning point in [Carl’s] life.”
I asked his mother why she thought Carl did so well in college when he didn’t excel in high school.
“I give a lot of credit to the college itself,” she said. “There’s a lot of one-on-one attention. I feel it was a very supportive atmosphere and just what Carl really needed. I think his real problem in the Exeter school system was that he got off to a really bad start and that reputation stayed with him. And I think that no matter how hard he tried, he never got a break. And then to go to St. Joseph’s, he was starting all over.”
Carl’s answer for being a less than stellar student in high school was simple. He didn’t care. He did like his teachers and he didn’t like what they were teaching him.
I ask Carl’s mother if she thought his early basketball involvement helped him overcome his problems.
“I think it did,” she said, “because it made him feel more confident and gave him a little bit more self-esteem. … It seemed that everything he did just didn’t work out and he had a really hard time in school and had a lot of negativity around him in school. And then when Kyle really introduced him to basketball, I think it was something that he felt he could excel at and he was pretty good at it. It gave him a lot of self-confidence, I think. I really think it was a big turning point, not only because it started to build his self-esteem, but because it gave him a direction and took up a lot of time [where] he would have been just hanging out if he hadn’t been involved in [basketball].”
Carl also credited Littlefield, his junior high advisor, with helping him mature and overcome his inherently hyperactive nature.
Even so, in high school he was never totally able to overcome his reputation as “bad kid” and much worse — from a coaches perspective — he was labeled as “lazy”. Both labels hurt his recruiting chances, but Coach Simonds didn’t let Howell’s reputation stand in his way and recruited Carl to St. Joe’s.
And the rest — as they say — is history.
And we will learn some of that history in …
Carl’s Story
Carl Howell was born July 19, 1977, in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
His mother’s name is Donna (Appleton) and his father’s is Willie — a former “all-state track athlete in Kentucky, as well as a good baseball player”, Carl offered. Carl has only one sibling, his younger sister Dana, who also ran track in high school.
Carl was raised in Exeter, N.H., just 30 minutes down Rt. 95 from Standish, Maine, the home of the St. Joe’s Monks.
“It’s pretty much like a suburb-type of environment,” Carl said of Exeter. … It’s seen as a wealthy town. And the town revolves around Exeter Academy, which is a prestigious academy — kinda like MCI, only it’s more academics. [Exeter] looks like a college town almost — you know, like the big houses and … they have a huge campus and great facilities ….”
When I asked Carl how he became interested in basketball, he said,
“I played one winter when I was real-real young. My parents got me into it just to get me out of the house and to waste some energy that I had, because I was a very hyper child.
“But I didn’t like it. I hated it. And so after that I never played again.
“And a lot of the friends I grew up with, they were all like … ‘basketball, basketball’. … And I’d always played baseball and soccer. … Then around — probably like — seventh or eighth grade was when I first started playing [basketball]. My friend would go … ‘Oh, let’s go play basketball’ and I would go play.
“And I didn’t know how to play. I’d just go down and it kinda came natural. I guess the whole game came naturally to me. I never really had problems with my form. … I was pretty athletic.
“So I just started playing then — [playground basketball for like two years] — and I didn’t play organized basketball until I got to high school.”
“I tried out for our [freshman] team. And no one ever got cut. Everyone who tried out made the team, so …. ”
When asked about his abilities as a freshman, Carl responded, ….