The power of knowledge and perseverance were a few of the key themes of the annual Student-Athlete Life Skills Day. The MSU Athletic Department provided student athletes a rare glimpse into the life of the man behind the hit movie Coach Carter.

Students and the Wichita Falls community crowded into the D.L. Ligon Coliseum Saturday to hear Coach Ken Carter spread his message of winning.

“I came here to talk to all the athletes and to teach them a little bit about life,” Carter said in a pre-speech interview. “I want to take forth the information that I’ve learned throughout the years, and share it with all these young people. You can never see a sunset if you keep running east.”

Carter said a lot of students are running in the wrong direction.

“What they really have to understand is that people who have access to the best information are the people who are usually the most successful,” he said.

In 1999, Carter rose to fame when he benched his then-undefeated Richmond High School boys basketball team. The infamous gym lockout was in response to 15 of his 45 players not upholding the personal grade requirement he made for the Richmond high athletes. Carter’s requirement for the players was a 2.3 GPA, .3 points higher than the state’s 2.0 requirement for the no pass, no play rule.

Since the release of Coach Carter, he has become a renowned public speaker focused on educating students not just athletically, but academically as well, through his Coach Ken Carter Foundation. He is also the author of the best-seller Yes Ma’am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps to Success in Life.

“[The movie] has given me a bigger platform,” Carter said. “I get to speak and influence more people now, it is truly a blessing.”

Carter is now in the process of starting up the Coach Ken Carter Impact Academy, an all-boys school in Marlin, TX.

“It’s been almost a three-year process of getting the school open,” he said. “January 4, the day that I actually locked the gym up in 1999, is looking like it will be the day in 2013 that I’ll be locking the kids into the school.”

Whether it was his powerful enthusiasm from which he spoke or his surprise attacks on the athletes in the audience, Carter’s message centered in on one thing – winning. He said before students can win, they have to make sure that everything was in its right place. Winners are not born, they are made, he said.

The famed high-school basketball coach said he knew the upcoming season would be on the athletes’ minds, but he wanted them to look more to their distant future, instead.

“I was brought in to say to these athletes, ‘Listen, young people. [I’ve] walked in your shoes,’” Carter said. “[I] Was a high school All-American, a college player and [I] played two weeks of pro ball, but my career was done after that. So now I have to do something else to make a living.”

Carter gave out the statistic that only 1 out of every 500,000 athletes get the opportunity to play some kind of professional sport.

“Have you checked Microsoft recently?” Carter questioned. “There are over 25,000 millionaires in that single company as of this morning.”

Carter used this example to stress the importance of education through the opportunities that it can create for you.

“Young people, you don’t want a job,” he said. “J.O.B. means just over broke. It’s when you have a career that you can really start to stack your paper.”

Carter said that there are four things that define a winner: accountability, integrity, being a good follower before you’re a good leader, and being a part of a team.

“If you write things down, they’re ten times more likely to come true in your life,” Carter said. “You have to live up to your full potential. You don’t get paid by the hour, but by the value that you put into the hour. The universe will give you what you really work for and want. It has no choice.”

Carter stressed the importance of knowledge and making good decisions while you are young, as well.

“Knowledge is not power,” Carter said. “The use of knowledge is power. You have to have access to get information, and then you have to put it to good use.”

Carter went on to say that wanting something does not mean that it will come easy. He reminded the athletes life is all about the seasons, and that at some point winter will come.

“It was very motivational and inspirational,” said Katelyn Vinson, a freshman softball player. “He is pushing us to be the greatest that we can be, and I’ve always looked up to him. I like how he reminded us that spring always comes after winter.”

MSU Athletic Director Charlie Carr said Carter is a great example of hard work and perseverance.

“He’s a dynamic guy,” Carr said. “He makes you think a lot about what you’re doing, especially when the students are at this stage of their lives.”

Carr said it was special for MSU to have someone like Coach Carter to help kick the year off and that he hopes this can be repeated in the future.

“Hopefully we can make this grow into something that’s more than just our student athletes,” he said. “We want everyone to hear and see this. We’ve got a good start, and that’s what it’s all about.”