CC talks HOF

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — Walking the corridors of Minnesota Vikings headquarters for the first time since he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the memories came flooding back for Cris Carter.

He came to Minnesota in 1990 with drinking and drug problems weighing him down, having been kicked to the curb by Philadelphia despite scoring 11 touchdowns the previous season.

The Vikings gave him some discipline and direction, without which he doesn’t believe he would have come close to putting together a career worthy of the Hall.

As he recounted his experiences in Minnesota, he spotted former Vikings part-owner Wheelock Whitney in the crowd and recounted how Whitney and former team counselor Betty Triligi helped him overcome alcohol and cocaine issues that essentially got him booted out of Philly.

“Personally what they did for my life, that changed my life,” Carter said on Thursday. “Besides my mother, there’s a lot of people that helped me out but there’s not a lot of people that can say that I wouldn’t have made the Hall without their involvement. But I can stand here today as a man to tell you if you wouldn’t have helped me that day when I came here, that second week in September, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Carter choked up several times while he reminisced on his time with the Vikings, who claimed him on waivers after Philadelphia cut him.

He said he had stopped using cocaine by then but was still abusing alcohol, and recalled the exact day — Sept. 19, 1990, — when Triligi challenged him to go a week without drinking.

“I haven’t had a drink since then,” Carter said. “I was just trying to make it through the week to survive really. That’s what I was really trying to do, just make it through one week and then eventually after surviving, I could feel my body starting to change and I could feel my ability starting to really, I could be as good as I really wanted to be. I upped my conditioning, I dropped my body weight, and then the rest was history.”

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