Ethan Troll is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Desert Edge high school for AZPreps365.com

Mark and Marcus Carter are two of a kind.

Desert Edge’s varsity football and track and field head coaches Mark and Marcus Carter have been continuing to strengthen the competitive spirit of Desert Edge sports over the last four years.

After both brothers graduated from college, they didn’t know where to go from there. Once they saw their first opportunity in San Jose, Calif., to coach football, they took off from there. They’ve being coaching ever since and love to bring the best out of young athletes.

The Carters have over 20 years of coaching experience under their belts, coaching for schools in California and more recently, Arizona. They came to Desert Edge in 2020 when they were given the opportunity to be the head coaches of the varsity football team. They have made an instant impact, helping the team make deep playoff runs in four consecutive seasons, including a 5A state championship appearance in 2023.

When the brothers were hired in 2020, they also agreed to coach track and field and have brought the same amount of energy to their athletes on the squad that they bring to their football players. They don’t always coach with toughness, however.

“Every sport that Marcus and I have coached, we lead with love,” Mark said. “You know, the biggest thing is when you lead with love, that can carry over to any sport. The biggest thing for us is we want to touch these kid’s hearts and once you touch the kid’s hearts, then you can get them to do anything that you want them to do.”

“Track is tough,” Mark said. “It’s an individual sport and you’re running for a goal. It’s tough, especially with our football players where they’re having seven on sevens going on right now. They have all these things that can distract them from what we’re doing.”

Both coaches know that not every student is going to be easy to coach, but with their experience and methods of teaching, it makes it easier for them to be able to help their student athletes grow. Especially within academics, considering that they are also teachers in the classroom.

“We see a lot from our athletes,” Mark said. “It’s funny because you never know what these kids are doing or saying or learning until you have them imitate you or you know, make jokes or whatever. You see that even some of the smaller things you don’t think that they’re picking up, they pick up.”

“We get to lead a lot of young athletes of color and show them how to move. We show them how to move around school and show them that education is definitely important, especially with being a teacher myself. It shows them I do care about education. They’re respectful to their teachers, their respectful to admin, their leaders on campus, and they’re taking a lot of those leadership qualities that Marcus and I have displayed on the football field out into school.”

Their student-athletes, whether they’re starting out as freshman or ending their year as a senior, have continued to show that their coaches’ leadership styles have rubbed off on each other.

“We’ve heard teachers tell us about how one of our players went and checked another player and asked him, ‘Is this the standard? Are you negotiating with yourself?’ We have our saying: ‘Stop negotiating with yourself.’ We’re just making sure that being leaders on campus comes with a price and with that price definitely comes with some high rewards.”

With everything that they have taught to their student athletes, Mark and Marcus are ready to show that this season’s squad is one to watch out for and for fans to be pumped up for heading into the spring.

“This has been a culmination of four years,” Mark said. “The athletes are competing, competing, competing. I feel like our track team right now is hitting in stride and it’s at its’ peak. Fans should be excited because everything that D.E. does is exciting and with an edge. We turn up everywhere we go.”

“These young men and women are working really hard,” Mark said. We want to win the open. We want to win the open in track and we want to win the open in football. Everything we do, we try to win at the highest level. We’re trying to take it all. We have some really fast athletes, our distance team has come along, and we’ve got some really good guys throwing shot and disk. We got to the state championship in football, and we plan on getting to the state championship in track.”

Desert Edge will be having their open meeting on Feb. 21 at 3:30 p.m.