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NY Times:
He won a BMX world championship at 9, only to quit the sport. He nearly died a few years later when he was hospitalized for six weeks after being thrown from a moving car. The injuries were so severe that his early football days were as a kicker who would grab the kicking tee and run off the field because he was not allowed any contact....
Raised in Sweeny, Tex., a town of 3,624 about an hour-and-a-half drive southwest of Houston, Carder was named Ricky Jr. but was nicknamed Tank as a baby for his enormous size. He started riding a bicycle without training wheels when he was 26 months old.....
He did walk but was slowed by a fiberglass body brace when he was discharged from the hospital. A few weeks later, his father, Ricky Carder Sr., heard Carder crying in his bedroom and went to check on him. Tank Carder insisted nothing was wrong before saying, “I’m never going to be able to play sports again, Dad, ever.”
Carder redshirted his freshman year but made an impression on Patterson and his teammates when he tackled a 400-pound calf during a rodeo at the Texas Bowl that season.
He won a BMX world championship at 9, only to quit the sport. He nearly died a few years later when he was hospitalized for six weeks after being thrown from a moving car. The injuries were so severe that his early football days were as a kicker who would grab the kicking tee and run off the field because he was not allowed any contact....
Raised in Sweeny, Tex., a town of 3,624 about an hour-and-a-half drive southwest of Houston, Carder was named Ricky Jr. but was nicknamed Tank as a baby for his enormous size. He started riding a bicycle without training wheels when he was 26 months old.....
He did walk but was slowed by a fiberglass body brace when he was discharged from the hospital. A few weeks later, his father, Ricky Carder Sr., heard Carder crying in his bedroom and went to check on him. Tank Carder insisted nothing was wrong before saying, “I’m never going to be able to play sports again, Dad, ever.”
Carder redshirted his freshman year but made an impression on Patterson and his teammates when he tackled a 400-pound calf during a rodeo at the Texas Bowl that season.
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