On the eve of the annual Orange vs Blue Virginia Spring Football game, UVA Head Coach Mike London was already in a celebratory mood for something far bigger than winning games. London held his annual Bone Marrow drive Friday afternoon, an initiative called “Get in the Game, Save A Life”. London has conducted the drive annually during his tenure at the University of Virginia.
Former players and even a member of the media have been identified through the drive as donors that could potentially save a life by donating bone marrow. The testing drive helps to find matches to treat people with different types of blood and bone marrow cancers and benefits the Be The Match Foundation. In addition to recruitment efforts prior to the drive, members of the Virginia football team will helped with registration during the event.
Over the past five years, the Cavaliers, working with volunteers from UVa’s student-run club Be the Match, have registered over 1,300 people for the donor database. During the inaugural drive in 2010, senior linebacker Trevor Grywatch proved to be an exact match and in October of 2010, he donated his marrow to a recipient. Two years ago, safety David Marrs was selected as an exact match and donated his marrow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in April of 2013. In February, former UVa kicker Chris Hinkebein, matched up with a donor and underwent a procedure at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital in Chapel Hill to donate his bone marrow.
At least eight participants in the program have been selected as matches and undergone the donation procedure.
London has been driven to conduct the drive, because his daughter required a bone marrow transplant when she was a child. This year’s event was the most successful to date. The drive registered a record 523 people, and since London began conducting the bone marrow drives when he was the Head Coach at Richmond, the drive has registered over 2,000 people as potential donors to change lives.
Vincent Breidis of UVA Media Relations contributed to this article.
