Perseverance, consistency and patience.
Those are the three words Bradley’s track and field freshman Carolina Martinez carries through everyday life. These words are valuable to the person she has grown into.
The sprinter from Gurnee, Illinois, excitingly began her first collegiate season by setting personal-best times in multiple events across various meets.
“Her attitude and her desire to be good, but also that she loves Bradley and loves being a part of the team, that spirit is really infectious,” head coach Andrew Carlson said. “It’s probably been the biggest benefit on top of her also now being the second best 400-meter runner in Bradley history.”
Her start has been extraordinary, but her story and life journey to Peoria is even more remarkable.
Carolina’s childhood
Like many other young girls, Martinez loved to dance. She participated in ballet during the summer of 2011 when she was five years old; however, over time, Martinez started sporadically experiencing odd symptoms.
“My symptoms were bloody noses, high fevers and I was getting bruises out of nowhere,” Martinez said. “My mom thought I was just being a rambunctious child, but I wasn’t doing anything.”
Out of caution, Martinez had many doctor’s appointments and underwent numerous tests to identify the root of her issues. Martinez eventually took a blood test, after which she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of blood cancer.
A few days after the diagnosis, Martinez and her family visited Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, where pediatricians reviewed everything.
“They basically told me, in a kid version, what was going on with me,” Martinez said. “My red and white [blood] cells were basically battling each other. And then they took my grandma, my mom and my sister into a different room and explained to them what was happening.”
This is a very complex issue for a five-year-old to understand, so Martinez only remembers the positive things that happened during her treatment process. She credits her family, nurses, doctors and the hospital itself for distracting her and keeping her in a child’s world.
“I spent a lot of time in the playroom, watching movies, doing a lot of crafts, just keeping myself distracted,” Martinez said. “I don’t really remember a lot of the bad things or hard things. Most of the things that I remember are good because that’s what my family wanted to focus on.”
“I think it was harder for my family, especially because at the time, my mom was a single parent, so a lot of our support came from her best friend, my grandparents, my uncle and other family and friends as well,” Martinez continued.
Martinez’s health caused her to start kindergarten late and miss many days of school due to hospital visits, overnight stays and feeling too fatigued. She received treatment for three years, and right before she started third grade, Martinez was officially in remission.
Beginning her track career
Prior to sixth grade, Martinez enjoyed playing only soccer. However, she was interested in running cross country because her mom did in high school. The only issue was both were fall sports so she stuck with soccer.
She knew that track and field would be in the spring season, so she gave it some thought, and then almost didn’t.
“I remember the night before tryouts, and my mom and I were at the dinner table, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do track. I want to do soccer,’” Martinez said. “I don’t know how, but that next day after school, I was with my friends at tryouts, and that was the first time I had ever been introduced to track.”
Martinez instantly fell in love with the sport and ran every year after that.
“Ever since I’ve joined track, I’ve just always felt so much joy being around teammates and meets,” Martinez said. “I’ve done basketball and volleyball before, and there’s just a different feeling between going to games for those sports and then going to meets.”
At the end of her sophomore year, Martinez began to get serious about pursuing the sport further. She joined an AAU club the summer before her junior year and decided to stop playing basketball to focus on running in the indoor season.
That’s when Martinez began to look at schools and figure out what she wanted to do.
Full-circle moment
When Martinez’s older sister, Isabella, began her college search, she looked at schools in the Illinois and Wisconsin areas. One school she and her family toured was Illinois State.
“My sister had also applied to Bradley, so she was like, ‘It’s not that far, can we check it out?’” Martinez said. “So we went to Bradley and kind of gave ourselves our own little visit through the car and walked through campus.”
“My sister and I took a picture at one of the Bradley signs that’s right by Geisert [Hall] and Campustown,” Martinez continued. “Then my mom got my sister and I a sweatshirt, and my mom told me that I wore that sweatshirt 24/7. I would wear it all the time.”
Little did she know that she and her sister would recreate the photo when Martinez officially moved on to campus.
“I just think it’s so cool,” Martinez said. “It’s just full circle, like I never would have thought.”
Before she got on campus, Martinez went through the recruitment process and again visited the Hilltop. Her visit went so well that Martinez knew this was the place for her. Later that day, when she returned, her acceptance letter from Bradley was in the mail.
“As soon as this visit was done, I told my mom in the car ride home that I really, really liked it,” Martinez said. “I knew that my feelings were strong because the next day I had another visit with another school, and I told my mom, ‘I don’t want to spend another two days on another visit when I’m going to be thinking about Bradley.’”
“We were extremely fortunate to be able to get Carolina to come here,” Carlson said. “Just her attitude and work ethic and all those things are what we aspire to have as a part of our program.”
First-year impact
Martinez’s first-year accolades continue to add up. She broke a 41-year-old program record in the women’s 300-meter race in her first collegiate meet with 40.18 seconds.
She continued to lower her personal-best mark in the 400-meter for five consecutive weeks. Her first record time was 57.58 seconds, and it now stands at 55.55.
“I think that’s kind of what’s starting to separate her from everyone else she competes with– that determined attitude,” Carlson said. “See how good she can be and see how good she can be at Bradley.”
Carlson noted that her impact is being felt on the recruiting trail for other Illinois high school runners.
“Someone like Carolina is such a huge piece to continue to build, and we’ve already seen that this year in recruiting, that she’s kind of setting a standard,” Carlson said. “Other Illinois girls are seeing Carolina getting better, and she’s doing it at Bradley. So I think in the future, she’s going to continue to be the focal point of how we progress.”
By being a tone-setter, her teammates have been inspired by her work ethic and attention to detail.
“They get kind of thrown into a program, and they’ve never trained all year round like you do in college,” junior Hope Rajlich said about incoming freshmen. “To see someone that young come in and ask those questions and be ready to compete every day, I think that’s really inspiring.”
Rajlich and Martinez developed a friendship beyond the track. The two grew close, as Rajlich’s roommate was close to Martinez when she ran track. They have been on a snowboarding trip, get coffee together after morning practices and will be going on spring break together.
“She’s very adventurous, like me,” Rajlich said. “We do stuff together, go on trips and talk and we like to cause chaos in the office too by bothering our coach.”
Martinez’s track career at Bradley is just taking off, but she’s excited to see where the potential of the team and herself can go.
“I feel like each and every group has a lot of potential, and I’m just really excited to unlock it,” Martinez said. “I know it’s cliché, but just keep going, honestly, and show other schools what Bradley is and can be.”
In the end, Martinez wants her younger self, whom she refers to as little Caro, to see the accomplishments she has dreamed of.
“I’m doing it for my little version, because when I was little, I wanted to be part of a team,” Martinez said. “I’ve always wanted to get a medal or a trophy, wear a jersey, and every little thing I’ve achieved I’m like this is what my little self wanted.”
