IU Northwest gives student-athletes unparalleled opportunities to succeed in all disciplines
On the second floor of Gainbridge Fieldhouse’s main concourse in downtown Indianapolis is a brightly colored mural.
The mural, Hoosier Hysteria created by Nekoda Witsken in 2022, is dedicated to Indiana’s love for high school basketball. On it, there’s a distinguishable face.
Alyna Santiago, a senior student-athlete at Indiana University Northwest, kept hearing about the mural. Passersby would ask Santiago if it was her face on it.
With one glance, there’s no doubt. The massive mural depicts Santiago cutting down the nets after winning the state championship for Crown Point High School in 2021.
Hundreds of thousands of Fieldhouse visitors have seen the mural on their way to watch the Pacers, Fever or basketball superstar Caitlin Clark play. This past summer, Santiago finally saw it for herself.
Basketball has always been a centerpiece in her family. Her siblings play, including current RedHawks’ teammate Jessica Carrothers, and Santiago’s family is a major reason why she came to IU Northwest to continue her career as a student-athlete.
But while basketball led to Santiago being highlighted in the mural, her IU Northwest education brought her to the heart of basketball country to see it.
“It was kind of cool,” Santiago said. “I didn’t know how big it was since I had only seen pictures of it. It was really neat to be able to go to state and end my high school career with a win.”
At IU Northwest, Santiago — like all RedHawks student-athletes — is gaining a world-class IU degree close to home while playing the sport she loves.
Taking advantage of an IU degree
Last year, Santiago applied for the Indiana Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program.
She was accepted, allowing her to participate in funded research over the summer, culminating in a presentation at IU Indianapolis.
Santiago expressed her interest in working with Spencer Cortwright, an Associate Professor in the Biology Department, on an ecological research study.
Cortwright, despite never working with a student-athlete on a research project, agreed. The two worked in the campus’s nature preserve, gathering data on the diversity of plants in a prairie, which is typically highly diverse on smaller spatial scales.
And while Santiago — a biology student in the pre-professional dentistry program — isn’t going into ecology, Cortwright said the lessons learned through research are invaluable for any career.
“In any kind of practice, you’re going to see a patient that has a situation but there’s going to be a different factor,” Cortwright said. “… Even though this project didn’t have anything to do with oral healthcare, it does stretch your mind to remember that there are going to be multiple factors in anything you are diagnosing.”
Santiago was not necessarily comfortable presenting her findings but gained the confidence she needed through the study.
“I gathered all my information, put it on a poster and presented for 45 minutes with students from other IU schools,” Santiago said. “I really don’t like presenting, but when I was able to do all this research and then present, I was very proud of myself.”
Becoming the best on and off the court
Balancing academics, athletics and everyday life isn’t easy. Most collegiate basketball players play a grueling four-month season, which includes missing classes for travel and being away from home during some of the biggest holidays.
Leaving family wasn’t an option for Santiago. She wanted to play basketball, do it close to home, pursue a well-respected degree and save money.
IU Northwest checked all those boxes.
While biology isn’t the easiest degree, the small class sizes and flexibility IU Northwest offers make it possible for student-athletes like Santiago to pursue and excel in the degree of their choice. Women’s basketball head coach Nicki Monahan-Keith knows that as well as anyone.
Monahan-Keith was a local basketball product from Portage, Indiana. She also came to IU Northwest for her biology degree with a pre-health professions focus and became a physical therapist.
As a student-athlete, Monahan-Keith developed close relationships with her professors while exceeding on the basketball court as a three-time NAIA All-American, finishing second on the program’s all-time scoring list.
“It was nice especially when you got in those upper-level biology classes you got a lot of one-on-one time with professors and were able to go out in the field and actually do stuff,” Monahan-Keith said. “… I think with some of the big campuses you can kind of get lost in those big lecture halls.”
While your degree will make you competitive in the job market post-graduation, the competition on the court will make you better, as well. With the new flexibility of the transfer portal, NAIA women’s basketball rosters include Division I recruits and former D-I players across the country, even here at IU Northwest.
All those factors make IU Northwest an attractive option for prospective student-athletes, Monahan-Keith says.
“We’re super competitive on the basketball floor, you earn an IU degree and you still get the whole college experience,” Monahan-Keith said.
Whether you’re balancing early morning practices, lifts, in-the-field class work, summer research projects, family life or work, IU Northwest professors accommodate to make everything work.
“If there’s another student-athlete who comes up and wants to work on a summer project, I know it can be done,” Cortwright said. “The athletic demands are always within reason for the academic means.”
Looking toward the future
Entering her third year as a starting guard, Santiago has immediate goals with her teammates such as winning the conference and making the NAIA Tournament.
Even after switching her major midway through college, she’s on track for her future professional goals, too. After graduating, she plans on pursuing a career as a pediatric dentist.
Achieving both at a high-level are possible. She just has to look at Monahan-Keith, who excelled on the court and spent years working at Lakeshore Bone and Joint as a physical therapist assistant before eventually returning to IU Northwest, where she was promoted to the head coach this past summer.
While there were other paths she could’ve taken, looking back, Santiago couldn’t be happier with her decision to come to IU Northwest as a student and an athlete.
“It’s great. And you get the whole college experience here,” Santiago said. “You make friends and you’re a lot more focused in school.”
Eventually, Santiago’s basketball career will come to an end. While it has helped her achieve so much, she knows, soon, her degree and the experiences she gained at IU Northwest will set her apart for a lifetime of success.
