Wisconsin Badgers left tackle Gabe Carimi is experiencing nothing short of a dream senior year. Consider this stellar resume:
• He is co-captain of the Big Ten championship team that’s destined for the Rose Bowl.
• He is Big Ten Lineman of the Year and winner of the Outland Trophy recognizing the nation’s best interior lineman.
• He is months away from a National Football League career that likely will begin with a first-round draft selection.
In fact, a quieter success story is playing out only about two football field lengths away from Camp Randall Stadium, on the University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering campus.
Carimi, who first appeared in The Chronicle as a freshman (issue of Oct. 5, 2007), is a graduating senior in civil and environmental engineering. He has been named Academic All-Big Ten for four straight years.
At six-feet-eight-inches and 320 pounds, Carimi has had no trouble getting noticed on the football field. But professor Jeff Russell, chair of civil and environmental engineering and Carimi’s faculty advisor, says the off-the-field student athlete story is equally remarkable.
“Author Jim Collins, in his book ‘Good to Great,’ talks about someone he calls a level-five leader,” Russell said. “That type of leader has personal humility but also has really strong professional will.
“I think Gabe has the elements of both those qualities. He’s a leader on that team, is humble, and he clearly has the will to succeed at everything he does.”
Read the full article in the January issue.
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