Vaulx Carter
Carter from the official 1882 Navy football team portrait
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| Sport(s) | Football |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | August 14, 1863 Davidson County, Tennessee |
| Died | Before 1930 |
| Playing career | |
| 1882 | Navy |
| Position(s) | Rusher |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1882 | Navy |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 1–0 |
Vaulx Carter (August 14, 1863 – before 1930) was an American college football player and engineer who is best remembered as the first coach of the Navy Midshipmen football program. He was born in Tennessee and raised there for part of his childhood, until he was orphaned and adopted by family members in Pennsylvania. Starting in 1880, Carter attended the United States Naval Academy; he struggled academically at the school, only excelling in his art classes. Carter failed his final examinations in his final two years at the academy and was recommended for removal following the second failure. This did not happen, as he was forced to voluntarily resign from the school in 1883 due to permanent injuries received from an accident.
Carter's time at the Naval Academy was not without success; in his second year, he singlehandedly managed to restart the school's football program after a two-year hiatus. Carter guided his team as a player-coach for the season, leading them to a victory over students from Johns Hopkins University, the first win in school history.
Information about Carter following his resignation from the academy is scarce. One Navy football historian described him as having "disappeared from the historical record". He attended some classes at Swarthmore College in 1883, but he did not complete a course. During the late 1880s, Carter was an instructor at the Hebrew Technical Institute and also worked as an engineer; he designed a parachute and a model of a plan for the Nicaragua Canal, both of which attracted media attention. During the 1890s, he was an assignee for several corporations in New York City. Carter served as a lieutenant in the New York State Militia from 1902 to 1910. Later, during the 1920s, he lived with his sister on a farm in New York, occasionally writing articles for a magazine she edited. According to census records, Carter died by at least 1930.
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