Carpenter was raised in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, a farming community between Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina. A standout athlete at Wofford College in South Carolina, Carpenter's abilities on the football field attracted the attention of the Baltimore Colts during his senior year in 1957, and the team offered him an opportunity to play professional football on the same team as legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas. After talking to his family and his minister, Carpenter turned them down. The next year, the Colts won the Western Conference championship and went on to defeat the New York Giants in the first overtime game in National Football League history, often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". Carpenter went on to a career in medicine, devoting a 50-plus-year career to the understanding and treatment of severe mental illness.