Northwestern University Athletics
Football Game Program Story For Minnesota
10/13/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 13, 2001
EVANSTON, Ill. - When the line of orange coolers stretches endlessly on the sidelines, it's hard to imagine a place with no running water.
When gleaming weight rooms extend inside multimillion-dollar athletic facilities, it's hard to imagine lifting boulders for strength.
When life in Evanston, Ill. seems so All-American, it's hard to imagine life in an impoverished Dominican Republic village. But junior fullback Vincent Cartaya knows both these worlds well.
Since 1994, Cartaya has traveled with a group from his Miami, Fla. high school to the Caribbean country in the summer. These service missionaries, students and adults from the all-male Belen Jesuit College Prep school, provide help to tiny Dominican villages.
The work is structural-building bridges, hoisting poles for electrical wires, moving tons of rock to improve the infrastructure in the outlying villages of Santiago.
The long days consist of rising early to work, taking a midday siesta from the heat, finishing as the sun goes down then holding daily mass. At night the group of 20 to 40 sleeps in the schoolhouse on thin mattresses borrowed from the rectory. There is no electricity or running water.
Makes a college dorm room look pretty good.
In eight years and six trips the Florida native has gone from the role of the little eighth-grader who was not allowed to use the shovel to, at 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, a physical and spiritual leader.
"It's usually just a trip for high school juniors and seniors, but I'm grateful that my high school, Belen Jesuit, continues to let me go," Cartaya said.
"I'm feeling a little dated out there now," the 20-year-old said with a smile. Even though he only graduated in 1999, he finds himself hanging out more with Father Eddie Alvarez, a trip coordinator, than with the younger students.
The mission trip has become a Cartaya family affair. Watching his two older brothers go in the years before him inspired Vincent. Their father, owner of a scuba diving business in Miami, is called on to lead the engineering aspects of construction.
Cartaya, the son of a Cuban father and a French-Canadian mother, is fluent in Spanish. In Evanston he is worlds away from the Cuban-American culture that surrounds the Miami area. But he actually finds more cultural diversity in Chicago and loves it.
"I took a teacher's education class where you work at a school, and the program was just so diverse. I had kids from India, Nigeria, a girl that was half Guatemalan, half Puerto Rican, Mexicans, Anglos, everybody."
By contrast, "in Miami, if you're Hispanic, you're part of the majority."
The decision to come to Northwestern, Cartaya said, "was a feeling that I had."
"It didn't really make sense then, but I knew I was supposed to be here," the secondary education major said. "I love the school and playing football. Football is hard and there's a lot of trials that you face," but Cartaya knows he's in the right place.
"Vince is as enthusiastic a player as I have ever coached. His energy and passion for football are contagious. Off the field, Vince has the same energy toward education. Vince will go on to become a tremendous teacher and leader of tomorrow's youth," assistant coach Mike Dunbar said.
"He gives up two weeks out of his summer, out of football, to go down there. These trips of service just demonstrate Vince's dedication to others," said Cartaya's roommate and teammate, junior safety Mark Roush.
And while he does not like to overuse the word perspective, Cartaya said, "these trips have given me so much, I can't even begin to explain it. People always think it's a really good thing that I go and do this. At first I understood where they were coming from because it's not something that people normally do and it is good to help.
"But it's just become such a part of me, there's so much more that I get out of it, so much I learn from the experiences there. It's almost selfish on my part because I get so much out of it."
His roommate, Roush, explains it in a different way. "He always returns with a sense of how lucky he is to have had the chance to be around these men and women, and how lucky he is to have been blessed with such a wonderful life."
"Going there also helps me out as a football player," Cartaya said. "It helps me to be true to myself and that's a big part of football. It's working for the things that you believe in."
Not to mention mixing cement and carrying boulders is a good way to get in shape for Camp Kenosha.
Pictures from the most recent trip show Cartaya, in a Northwestern football t-shirt, working on a bridge alongside about 40 others. The motto of the group, he says, is in the words of St. Francis Xavier: in serving the poor you serve Christ.
Although coordinated by Jesuit priests in both countries, Cartaya makes it clear these mission trips are not about teaching religion to the indigenous people.
"These people have a faith that is so strong. They have almost nothing, but we learn so much from them and the strong faith they have."
Back on the football field, head coach Randy Walker has nothing but praise for Cartaya.
"He is a perfect example of why coaches choose to be involved in college athletics. Vince balances many academic, athletic and social commitments, yet excels in all three areas. Vince has an extremely positive attitude and is willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of the team," Walker said.
Currently the junior fullback is calling upon his inner strength to help him in tough times on the football field. For the Michigan State game he was in the stands with family instead of on the sidelines with the team due to an injury.
He expects to be back in action for today's game against Minnesota, and back in action on another service mission trip next summer.
