Mark and Marcus Carter — dual football coaches at South Mountain High School — are brothers in every sense of the word.

“Everything we do, we do together,” Mark Carter said. “We coached one year without each other, and that was the year that I was here in 2005, and then he came the next year.”

The Carters started their coaching careers in California through Pop Warner, a non-profit organization that provides youth football and cheer and dance programs for participants in several states and countries around the world, according to the “About” section on its webpage.

Mark came to Arizona first and got a job coaching at Cactus High School in 2005; his team won the state championship that same year.

“It’s part of being a twin,” Marcus Carter said. “It’s just how we lived our lives. The time he was here in Arizona was the longest time we’ve ever been apart.”

Marcus joined his brother at Cactus High School a year later and helped lead the Cobras to another state title in 2009. After losing in the semifinals in 2010, the Carters decided they would shake things up and coach in Georgia, where they stayed for three years.

Upon their return to Phoenix, the Carters took positions at Central High School, Mark becoming the offensive coordinator and Marcus taking over the defense.

Finally, after two years at Central, they applied for their positions at South Mountain High School and have been there ever since. Their unique leadership situation has started paying off, as the Jaguars moved to 4-0 on the 2017 season with their convincing 41-12 victory over Alhambra High School Friday night.

“I like having two coaches,” junior linebacker Cesar Caperon said. “I have the same connection with both because they both work here at the school, and we can be open with them whenever we want with any situation besides football.”

Mark said there are positive aspects to having two coaches’ input and teaching styles imprinted on the athletes.

“The players get to see us working as a unit,” Mark said. “It gives them an opportunity to see in action that you can have disagreements and move on. When it comes to a team decision, we collaborate … until we both agree that that’s the decision that we want to make.”

The Carters haven’t gotten ahead of themselves when looking at the early success of the 2017 season. They’re taking it one game at a time and are waiting until the offseason to make decisions based on the bigger picture.

“For me, personally, it’s hard for us to look forward to years to come,” Marcus said. “Our goal is to be 1-0 in every single week, and take it day-by-day, step-by-step and deal with those battles as they come.”

Mark added: “Once we get to the off-season, then we start looking ahead, but right now, in season it’s all about right in the moment. If you look ahead too far, and something happens and then the wave comes down and it’s like, ‘What happened?’ when we should’ve been looking at what was going on right in front of us.”

Having two coaches gives the students two minds thinking about and helping them work toward their success, instead of just one. It also gives them two mentors and father figures who are looking out for them and trying to imprint good morals and life lessons on them.

“We’re in the process of defining our core values,” Mark said. “One of our core values is love. We talk about love all the time, and loving each other, because football’s tough. If you don’t love what you do, you’re not going to be successful.”

While the students are at practice, they work on solidifying those core values in addition to honing their football skills.

Having two coaches to reinforce those values on the students helps the students further understand how to put those values into practice in their everyday lives, because they have two minds working toward the same goal in teaching them how to conduct themselves on and off the field.

“Our core values would be love, sacrifice, integrity, gratitude, dedication,” Mark said. “We want them to leave better than when they came.”