April 6, 2002, 11:08PM

David Carr's greatest role is as husband and father

By CARLTON THOMPSON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Mark Hance remembers the phone call as if it were yesterday. Rodger Carr was on the other line, and he wanted to talk about his son, who was transferring to two-year-old Stockdale High School with hopes of playing quarterback.

Hance, the athletic director and football coach at the high school in Bakersfield, Calif., didn't quite know what to expect, but he agreed to a meeting and couldn't contain his excitement when he saw the elder Carr walk into the room, all 6 feet, 5 inches of him.

If the father were such a tall drink of water, surely the son would be a big gulp, too, right? But before that thought could travel from his brain to his feet, which were no doubt preparing to jump for joy, Hance glanced down and saw the scrawny little kid Rodger had brought with him.

"Is this the younger brother?" Hance said.

"No, this is David," Rodger replied.

And just like that, the big gulp turned into a shot glass. At 5-4, 105 pounds, David Carr wasn't exactly what Hance had in mind. But because Carr was only an incoming freshman and his father was such an imposing figure, Hance hoped the young man was due for a growth spurt. Fortunately for all, Carr grew nine inches and added 65 pounds over the next two years.

Even if Carr hadn't grown another inch, Hance knew he was something special after watching him throw for the first time. He had an extremely strong arm, and not just for someone his size. Hance was drawn to Carr's throwing motion and the velvet-like touch he was prone to put on the ball. If only he weren't so small.

"He was just such a little teeny kid," Hance said. "We probably had 80 kids on the team, and he was probably in the bottom 10 percentile size-wise. But when you watched him throw, you could tell he was a pretty gifted kid. He could really throw the ball. It's just like it came natural to him."

Maybe it's because it did. Asked about his earliest memories of playing football, Carr provided a response that could spark comparisons to Tiger Woods and his father, Earl.

"Well, I was probably in diapers," he said. "I've been throwing the ball with my dad since I've been able to sit up."

Rodger Carr's love of football rubbed off on David almost as soon as he entered the world 22 years ago. For as long as he can remember, David Carr has believed he would be a professional athlete, with football being his top choice.

Carr was a talented third baseman and pitcher at Stockdale High, good enough to draw interest from several colleges. But he gave up baseball after his junior year in high school because it didn't provide the rush he gets from football and because he knew deep inside his dream was to be an NFL quarterback.

That dream will come true April 20 when the Texans make Carr the first overall selection in the 2002 college draft, anointing him as the quarterback around whom the expansion team will build for the future. But the road from Bakersfield, Calif., to Houston hasn't always been a smooth ride for the son of Rodger and Shery Carr.

Because he was so slight of frame, Carr didn't take his first snap as a starter in high school until his junior year. That still left plenty of time for him to rewrite the school's record books and earn a scholarship to his beloved Fresno State, which he chose over UCLA, Washington, Arizona, California and Purdue.

The summer before Carr's junior year at Stockdale High, he played in a 24-team passing league, a seven-on-seven touch circuit that served as something of an offseason program for local high schools.

"That's when David really begin to open some eyes," Hance said. "We got into the finals, and David really just carried our whole program to get us there. He went on to be our starter the next two years and had a great high school career.

"He was a kid that just developed a little later. He just kept getting better, bigger, faster and stronger."

By his senior season in high school, Carr was such an attraction that teammates and opposing players frequently asked for his autograph, a request that always baffled the down-to-earth kid with the California cool demeanor.

"I knew I was pretty good, and it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be playing a professional sport somewhere," Carr said. "I don't want to sound cocky or arrogant, but my dad always taught me and my (two younger) brothers that if you worked hard enough at something, you could do it.

"When your fellow players start asking you for your autograph in high school, I guess you start thinking about it a little bit more. I don't know what they were thinking. They knew more than I did, I guess.

"I always heard that I had talent from coaches when I was in elementary school and junior high, but I didn't think I was all that great. I didn't think I was the greatest player in high school. I think I matured late and that I'm starting to come into my own. I still have a lot more that I think I can do on the football field. That's why I'm excited about going into the NFL because I want to see how much better I can get."

To understand how uncomfortable the autograph-seeking from his peers was to Carr requires understanding how shy he was as a teen-ager. Hance recalls a girl asking Carr to a formal and not even getting a response.

"At first I thought he was being rude," Hance said. "But that was just David. He was just shy. That's the kind of kid he was. He was really outgoing with his teammates and his family, but of all the guys on the team, few were more shy than David."

Carr isn't shy when it comes to getting what he really wants or who he really wants. He wanted to play football at Fresno State for former NFL assistant coach Pat Hill, and he did. He wanted to play in the NFL, and he will.

But ask Carr his biggest accomplishment, and he won't hesitate to say it was winning the affections of the former Melody Tipton, his wife of three years. Carr met Melody at a Christian camp when both were in high school, and he overcame his shyness long enough to introduce himself to her. The two began dating, and within two years they were married. They have a 21-month-old son, Austin.

They were married at 19 not only because they were madly in love but because Carr was afraid that if he didn't act fast he might miss out on the best thing that ever happened to him.

"I didn't know that I was going to get married at 19," he said. "If you had told my friends that, they would have said you were crazy. You can't get ready for anything like that. Looking back, it's the best decision I've ever made. Melody has been my best friend ever since we met."

And being away from her is what made his early years at Fresno State so difficult. It didn't help that Carr only got limited playing time during his first two years and was redshirted the following year. Carr was so disappointed that he thought about transferring, but he changed his mind after discussing the situation with Melody, Hill and his family and after lots of prayer.

Carr made the most of his redshirt season, dedicating himself to becoming the best practice player he could be. He was voted scout team offensive player of the year, and defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle said Carr was the best quarterback his unit faced all season.

Carr won the starting job the next season and began guiding the Fresno State program to national prominence. He was good in 2001 but great in 2002, finishing as a finalist for the Heisman Trophy after leading the nation with 4,839 passing yards and 46 touchdowns.

Believe it or not, just a few years earlier, Melody had no knowledge of his athletic prowess. Carr courted Melody for three months before he told her he was on a football scholarship because he wanted her to like him for who he was. Melody knew he played football in high school, but she had never seen him play and had no idea he was talented enough to get a scholarship.

When Melody and her mother asked Carr what he was going to do after college, the psychology major said: "Well, Lord willing, I'm going to play in the NFL."

"We were like, `No really. What are you really going to do?' " Melody said. "It was really hard for us to believe that. I had never seen him play, but I thought it was good that he had those type of standards for himself. But I was still thinking `Aren't you going to have a backup plan?' When I started watching him, I could see that he really had something. When he finally got a chance to start, he showed the whole world what he could do."

And what he could do was good enough to vault the Bulldogs to as high as No. 8 in the Associated Press college football poll last season. By most accounts, Fresno State was a good team, but not as good as Carr made them look.

Playing in an NFL-style offense, Carr put up huge numbers week after week and never really had a bad game. He led the Bulldogs to upsets over ranked opponents such as Wisconsin, Oregon State and Colorado, and by the end of the season, he had the attention of NFL teams, particularly the Texans, who ranked him as the best college football player in the country.

Athletically, the Texans' interest in Carr is obvious. Texans offensive coordinator Chris Palmer is regarded as one of the best quarterback coaches in the NFL, and he can spot a talented player at the position as easily as Barry Bonds can spot a hanging curveball. Palmer has spent considerable time with Carr, and the two have forged a solid relationship. And Palmer is sure the Texans are hitting a home run by drafting Carr.

But the real deal-clincher came in January when owner Bob McNair winged over to Mobile, Ala., on his private jet to watch Carr during Senior Bowl practices and meet the young man his coaches, scouts and general manager Charley Casserly had raved so much about.

McNair and Carr hit it off immediately, and the owner left Mobile feeling that if he were going to invest millions in a player who never had taken a snap in the NFL, it was important that it be a player of Carr's character.

"One of the things you have to be concerned about is, `Is there going to be a problem with the player when you pick him?' " McNair said. "He goes from being broke in college, as just about all of us were, and then all of sudden you have all of this money and all of this publicity.

"In the case of David, he's married to a lovely wife, he has a child and he's got his feet on the ground. I've met his father; they're good, solid people, and I think David can handle it. I don't think there's a big risk from that regard. Usually, there is a big risk involved, but I think we've minimized that by choosing David."

But because NFL teams don't have the benefit of hindsight, the Texans were meticulous in their evaluations of Carr. They watched him break down game film, they broke down film of his games and they examined the much-talked-about low delivery in his throwing motion before determining all the talk was much ado about nothing.

"We feel like we know who he is," McNair said.

Equally important, the Texans wanted to know who he was before his introduction to the national spotlight. The team's director of security, Ryan Reichert, conducted a thorough background search that included a call to Randy Grueber, the principal at Stockdale High, where Carr enjoys legendary status.

Grueber remembers Carr as an "excellent student" who was a leader on campus and respectful toward his fellow students and members of the staff. He remembers the focused and determined young man who would always greet him in the hallways with a handshake and a smile, and he remembers thinking that Carr's heart and desire would make him successful in whatever he chose to do with his life.

"There is a great sense of honor that David was here," Grueber said. "I've changed my loyalties from the Broncos to the Texans, and that's saying a lot because I'm from Wyoming, and that's Broncos country. But the Texans have at least one new fan out here in California, and probably a lot more. We're really proud that David is one of us."

No matter where his fame and fortune-in-waiting takes him, there will always be a special place in Carr's heart for Bakersfield. It's where he grew up, where he met Melody and where he made a name and a life for himself.

Finding people who don't know and recognize him there is like finding a vegetarian with his lips wrapped around a steak. Dinner with Melody in a restaurant can quickly turn into a double, triple or quadruple date. A quick sprint into the grocery store for a box of diapers can turn into a marathon session of autograph signing.

"There are a lot of people who just want to come up and say `Hi,' and that's fine because maybe it means you're doing something right," Carr said. "I think that's the reason God put me here, so I can hopefully be a positive role model in the world.

"I'm fortunate to be in a position to get paid to do something I love to do, but to be able to share it with two people like Melody and Austin, that's the real blessing. Melody is a part of every decision I make, and I give her just as much credit in this as I get. She's definitely the head coach of the family.

"If people only understand one thing about me, I hope they understand that I'm just a normal guy. I'm not trying to be bigger than life. Some people want you to be bigger than life. I'm just David Carr -- Melody's husband, Austin's dad, a good Christian and hopefully a good NFL quarterback."

The Texans believe he will be.