Provo » The next time BYU basketball star Jimmer Fredette misses a free throw, gets charged for a foul or receives a less-than-satisfactory grade on a paper, he will remember that there are millions of people in Nicaragua who are far worse off than he is.
The same holds true for Cougar basketball coach Dave Rose, Cougar forward Charles Abouo and more than 20 players and coaches on other BYU athletic teams.
A contingent from the BYU athletic department and some spouses and family members -- about 30 strong -- returned recently from a seven-day humanitarian excursion to Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
"It is just amazing, the different way that people have to live," Fredette said. "In the U.S., we take so many things for granted, basically. The little things you wouldn't think are important back here mean everything to them. It was an eye-opening experience, that's for sure."
In conjunction with a Utah-based nonprofit group called Cause for Hope, the contingent spent a week working mostly with LDS Church members in Chinandega and surrounding areas. Players and coaches from the women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer teams at LDS Church-sponsored BYU joined the basketball delegates.
"It was a great experience for everybody involved," said Rose, who was accompanied by his wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Taylor. "Everybody had a unique experience because we were doing so many different things, but everyone came home happy for having gone."
Basically, Rose and Fredette said, the goal was to help the Nicaraguans become more self-reliant.
They poured concrete, built garages and overhangs, painted and performed other manual labor, but the bulk of the time was spent teaching business practices and marketing strategies.
"That was the biggest part of it," Rose said. "Not just go down there and build them something and leave, but we tried to teach them things so they could increase their income and better their lives."
Fredette said he was heavily involved in working with a family that runs an after-school day-care and tutoring business. He's an American studies major and business minor, but was able to help small companies develop business cards and advertising plans, as well as pricing structures and the like.
Every group of five had a BYU representative who spoke Spanish and served as a translator.
"It is amazing how happy and how full of life those people are, even though they barely have anything," said Fredette, a junior from Glens Falls, N.Y.
Rose conducted a basketball clinic at a new LDS stake center, while women's soccer coach Jennifer Rockwood and about 10 players ran a soccer clinic outside that drew far more participants, Rose said.
One of the most memorable moments of the trip for Rose was when he and his wife and daughter visited a girls-only orphanage and passed out gift bags containing free shoes provided by Nike and toiletries provided by Provo-based NuSkin Enterprises.
The soccer teams had also collected gently used shoes in Provo, which they handed out on the trip, along with soccer balls and clothing.
"The girls, ages 5 to 15, were really appreciative," Rose said. "That was a fun two hours where everybody got to pal around and try to communicate with the little bit of Spanish and English that we knew. Smiles were probably the best way to communicate."
It was the first time that Cause for Hope (http://causeforhope.org) had taken a group of athletes to either Nicaragua or Honduras, the other country where it performs humanitarian service.
