Shaler grad lives life of service

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The truly miraculous thing isn’t that Nick Carey won some sort of award. He has a 3.8 grade-point average at Harvard, the only school to which he applied, and he’s one of the best D1AA rugby players in the country. Awards will — and should — come.

No, the most amazing part of Carey winning Penn Mutual’s fourth annual Life of Significance Award earlier this month at the Collegiate Rugby Championships in Chester is that he had any competition whatsoever.

Carey’s list of charitable contributions is long. Like when-do-youpossibly-have-time-to-sleep long.

For starters, there’s living in Swaziland — a country in southern Africa — for two years while Carey assisted in the development of a peer counseling program for orphans. Carey also spent his spring break in Puerto Rico, helping with hurricanereliefefforts, and he’s organizing participation in various walks for multiple sclerosis, a disease Carey’s mother, Megan, has been living with sinceNick was 5 or 6.

“My Christian faith drives it a lot,” Carey said of his considerable charity work. “It’s one of the most rewarding things to do with your time.”

And somehow, Carey actually finds enough of that to do all of this.

To volunteer for Meals-onWheels while growing up in Glenshaw and a special-education gym class at Shaler High School — until his senior year, when Carey left for Swaziland.

To run a ministry for college students during summer break plus mentoring the high school youth group at North Park Church, where Carey and his parents (Megan and fatherDamion) are members.

All of them have special significance, said Carey, whose parents have since moved to Hampton Township.

“That was a community that was hurting,” Carey said of Swaziland. “I’ve been to some pretty underprivileged areas of the United States, but it was a different level of need that I sawwhen I was in Swaziland.”

It was similar to the Lakota tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest areas in the Western Hemisphere. Carey volunteered there as well.

“That’s probably the worst conditions I’ve seen in this country,” Carey said. “It was kind of an eyeopener, but we were very proud of the work we were able to do. We worked with a ministry that’s there and continues to be there. We wouldn’t just come in, help and leave.”

In Puerto Rico, Carey and others who made the trip saw flooding in the community of Arecibo that reached up to 10 feet. They also met a woman who had been too busy helping everyone else that she basically didn’t worry a lick about her own situation.

“We were able to go in and help restore her house back to where it was before the hurricane,” Carey said. “The opportunity to give back to somebody who had been pouring out so much for her community was very enriching.”

Carey can’t remember the last time he missed Walk MS in Pittsburgh. This year, in Boston, he even coerced many of his Harvard teammates to do it with him. “That meant a lot,” Carey said. The charity stuff is one thing, but Carey’s personal story is equally as remarkable.

For three years at Shaler, Carey played football, wrestled and ran track. He decided to try Swaziland after receiving a letter in the mail, advertising the experience. It was a two-year scholarship — when Carey was a high school senior and the year after — and offered a full ride to college.

“I just kind of took a shot in the dark,” Carey said.

It connected. Carey put Swaziland as a preference on his application and got it. After scoring a 2,110 on his three-part SAT and thriving with not only the mission-based part of the experience but academically as well, Carey earned a scholarship to Harvard.

In fact, it was on a trip home, in the airport, that Carey checked his email and learned his early-action application was approved; he was going to Harvard, without applying anywhere else. “Kind of surreal,” he said. While in southern Africa, Carey’s competitive side took over, and he needed something to do. Enter rugby. The position Carey — who’s 6 feet 2, 225 pounds — plays is called a prop. He’s essentially a lineman, front-and-center in the scrums while constantly involved in physical jostling. Carey loves it. “That’s the cool thing about rugby,” he said. “It’s kind of a mixture of roles. Where football is much more specialized, in rugby there’s a lot of different things you have to do throughout the game.”

In the classroom, Carey will graduate from Harvard in 2019 with a degree in film studies. The 23-year-old lists “Silence of the Lambs” as his favorite movie and said he became hooked on film due to the portrayal of Clarice Sterling — Jodie Foster’s character.

“Eventually I decided, I’m going to go all out for this,” Carey said.

For Carey, that meant having a bit of a Christian and missionbased slant. Carey would ultimately like to make faith-based movies to use as missionary tools, ones with messages for Christians and non-Christians alike.

“Kind of make them a little more cross-cultural than they are now instead of just preaching to the choir,” Carey said.

A lifelong Steelers fan, Carey has also taken notice that the Steelers have a rugby player, Christian Scotland-Williamson, on their practice squad, and the Philadelphia Eagles used their seventhround pick on an Australian rugby player, Jordan Mailata.

“I have a lot of friends who ask me, ‘Do you think NFL players could cut it in professional rugby? Do you think rugby players could cut it in professional football?’ “Carey said. “I think it will be an interesting experiment. I’ve always been impressed with the athleticism of rugby players. I’ve always thought that they have a lot to show to the NFL.”

Though he’s not even done with college, Carey has shown plenty to the rest of the world. He’s the president of the Harvard Rugby Football Club, a big-time contributor on the pitch, a star in the classroom and has done more volunteer work than most people could count.

“Nick has devoted himself to a life of service while maintaining a strong leadership role in whatever he does,” said Harvard rugby coach Michael Diamantopoulos. “His dedication to being a team member while also helping others is what the sport of rugby is all about.”