Lunch with Ernest

On kids and real names

By ERNEST HOOPER, Times Columnist
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2003

Emmy Award-winning sportscaster Chip Carter, who lives in Valrico, has worked at WTVT-Ch. 13 since 1988. Over burgers, fries and chicken wings at the Bloomingdale Cherry's, one of Chip's favorites, we talked about kids, growing up in New Hampshire and water sports.

Pull up a chair and join us.

Ernest: Is Chip your real name?

Chip: Nope.

Do I get to know your real name?

No, you're not going to put that on the front page of the St. Pete Times. (Laughs)

So that's a well-guarded secret. How many people in Tampa Bay know your actual name?

Maybe five.

Wow.

I was named after an uncle and my parents, I think they felt bad because I picked up the Chip nickname real early. It just doesn't feel like me.

Do your kids know?

Yeah, but they just recently found out. My mom will waffle back and forth. She uses either one depending on whether I'm in trouble, even now. If she's in a good mood, it'll be Chip.

Tell me about your kids

I got one guy at Randall, Chris, 12, and my daughter Tracy, 16, is at Durant.

Durant? You don't look old enough to have a 16-year-old daughter.

She was first. I told my son that's why we had him. I said, "Chris you're lucky we had a girl first or you never would have been born." But he's a good kid.

So if your daughter walks in one night and says she just had her first kiss, how would you react?

I would fall over dead. I would just pass out.

Are you teaching her to drive?

I'm going to look older as soon as she starts driving more. I'm going to look like (news anchor) Jon Wilson by the end of the month. When you learned to drive, didn't you go to driver's ed? They don't really have that. They put the students in a car in the school parking lot and let them work through cones, but that's not a lot of on-road experience.

I learned to drive in Boston. We would drive up the coast of New Hampshire. She's doing a good job, but my car is a shift with a clutch. She's okay with it.

You know, it's pretty uncommon for someone in the TV business to be at the same station for 14 years.

Knock on wood. It's unreal. The thing about it is we have four guys on our sports staff who are like that. We've been together since '88.

You say knock on wood, but you probably could have gone to a bigger market, right?

Yeah, you get other offers. While working for Fox sports on the sideline they talk to you about some other stuff, but it's a lot of travel. I like not only the hard-core stuff, but the features too. We got invited to go scuba diving with Michael Cousteau. We couldn't do it because the Bucs made the Super Bowl, but see, I like doing those discovery-type stories and you couldn't do it if you were in a bigger market.

So you like to spend a lot of time on the water?

We're like a waterbug family. Both kids are certified so we spend a lot of time diving. And I spend a lot of time windsurfing. My son surfs a lot. That's the only time you get out and there's no pagers, no cell phones.

You grew up the son of a hockey coach. Where did your dad coach?

St. Lawrence University for like seven or eight years and then he went to UNH (University of New Hampshire). Do you know Jack Edwards, the ESPN guy? He was a year ahead of me in school and we grew up in the same neighborhood. When I was a junior in college, he did play-by-play and I did color on the school broadcasts. It wasn't long after that I changed majors. Skip being a lawyer, I'd rather do this. Senior year, Jack graduated so I did the play-by-play and my brother (Brian) did color.

What does your brother do now?

He's down here now. It's cool. I have my whole family down here. My mom is in Sun City Center and my brother owns a medical clinic in North Tampa. He's probably the more successful of the two. I'm schlepping my way through television and he runs a medical clinic. I don't see the problem there.

Let me guess, he drives a Mercedes and you drive a Volkswagen?

He does. I'm not kidding you. That's not right. We're still the same.

So you really got turned on to Tampa Bay.

I got the whole family here. We still don't get to see each other as often as we can. The hours of this job are weird. I'll get home at 12 or 12:30, go to bed at 1. Tracy gets up at 5:30 to go to Durant and Chris gets up at 7. You can't get up that early or you'll be dead. So you don't really see them when they leave for school, so unless I come home during the week for dinner, Monday through Thursday you don't see the kids that much. That's a drag.

Do you get any static from your wife, Laurie?

No, she's a saint. Honest to goodness, I wouldn't have graduated from college if I hadn't met her. I'd still be sitting there saying, "What was that?" She's like mellow, like golden retriever mellow.

Don't worry, Ronda Storms called her husband a golden retriever. It's becoming a tradition in this column.

Well we have golden retrievers. We had four over the years and now we're down to two. We rescue those dogs.

You find them a good home?

No, we keep them. If I've got one weakness, it's for stray animals. I did say Laurie is mellow, but she's always like, "Chip, what are you bringing home now?"

So you met your wife at UNH?

Yep, in a personal relationship class (laughs). I got an A. She was in this class and I'll never forget the first time I saw her I thought she was awesome looking and I got really nervous, which is usually not me. We were walking out after class and the path forked left and right. I was so nervous walking along talking to her I went left, she went right and I kept talking for about another 40 yards before I realized she wasn't there.

DESSERT: A postscript from Ernest

Given his nighttime hours, Chip often does his relaxing in the morning. When pressed, he admitted to regularly watching Live with Regis and Kelly. (So do I, but I promised not to say anything.) Chip's most embarrassing TV moment came during his first stint in Savannah when he let an obscenity slip on the air. He seldom misses a chance to see Tom Petty live. His musical tastes range from Beth Hart (L.A. Song) to Montgomery Gentry to Dan Fogelberg, but he has never met his old lover in a grocery store.

-- Ernest Hooper also writes a column for the Tampa & State section of the St. Petersburg Times. Lunch With Ernest is edited for brevity and clarity. To suggest lunch partners call Ernest at 226-3406 or e-mail hooper@sptimes.com.

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