Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the abca's podcast. I'm your host ryan brownlee.
This episode is sponsored by Netting Pros.
Netting Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time.
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Next up on the ABCA podcast are Krista Ross and Joe Pannucci. Ross is Senior Manager of Athletics Programs and Partnerships at nmdp, formerly Be the Match who provides leadership and strategic direction for the nationally recognized MMDP get in the Game program.
Ross was co founder of the Andy Talley Bone Marrow foundation and spent 12 years as ATBMF's executive director.
Ross has spent 16 years leveraging the power of sports to drive life saving impact and leads the only athletics based blood stem cell donor recruitment program of its kind in the United States.
Ross has helped grow get in the Game into one of NMDP's most impactful donor recruitment initiatives through partnerships with coaches, student athletes and athletic departments nationwide. The program has connected hundreds of thousand of young adults and has resulted in more than 2100 donations helping save lives for patients battling blood cancers and blood disorders.
Pannucci has been the head coach at East Tennessee State University since 2017. After a successful stint as Recruiting coordinator at Stony Brook, Panucci joins us to give insights on the donation and treatment process with his father. Let's welcome everyone to the podcast.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Happy Friday.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: All good.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Make sure Joe's gonna pop on. I know he said he had a recruit on campus, but he said he should be able to get on.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Perfect.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Where are you located?
[00:03:26] Speaker C: I'm in Philly.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Okay, cool.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Are you from there?
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Born and raised.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: All right.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: Born and raised.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Been there a few times.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. I went to school in Washington D.C. so at George Washington University.
So spent a little time there but then ultimately made made my way Back.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I coached at James Madison for four years, so we'd get up. We played GW every year.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Did home and home.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: Yeah. I was there when Tom Walter was
[00:04:00] Speaker A: a ga. Oh, wow.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: I'm very good friends.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: I'm very good.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: There he is.
It's all good.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Morning, Coach.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Hi, there.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Nice to meet you.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah, you too. Nice meeting you.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Good. I'm ready if you two are. I'll count you and go. Joe, I know you got to recruit on campus, so I'm ready if you two are.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm. I'm good. I. We. We wrapped all that up, so no problem.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Whatever you guys got to do.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: We'll.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: We'll.
I'll follow your lead. Cool.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: All right. Here with Chris De Ross, senior manager of athletic programs and partnerships at mmdp, formerly Be the Match. And then Joe Panucci, head coach at ETSU since 2017. Thanks for jumping on with me, you two.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Morning.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Krista, you've been doing this for a while. As co founder of the Andy Talley Bone marrow Foundation and 12 years as executive director. And reading up, it looked like Andy Talley was a football coach. Correct. And that's how it got started.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: That's correct. I always say, believe it or not, Villanova does have a football team. I know they're known for their basketball, but. Yes. Coach Talley, in fact, is a College Football hall of Fame coach, which is quite the accomplishment.
But heard that people were dying needlessly without a match for a blood stem cell or marrow donation, and he thought, wow, I've got some student athletes that kind of jump when I say jump. I'm going to tell them about this registry and convince them that they could save a life. And we just built it from there.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: How'd you get connected with him?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: He's my neighbor, actually. And so we were at the gym playing racquetball one day, and he asked me if I was on the NMDP registry, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
And so when he kind of explained it, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna. I'll go down to the campus and swab my cheek and see if I can be a match for a patient. And when I went down, I just saw the athletes, like, in a leadership position, public speaking, engaging with the campus community in a unathletic way.
They were just typical students on campus engaging with their peers. And I just. It checked off so many boxes that I just. My wheels were spinning. I was home with four kids and kind of. I Wasn't bored because, you know, you're not bored when you have four kids and you're at home. But I was like, I think I've been philanthropic my whole life, so let me see what I can do. And Coach had the network and kind of the star power. I had the business acumen. So we just kind of combined forces and. And put together this get in the game and MDP get in the game program.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: And Joe, how'd you hear about the
[00:06:44] Speaker C: program
[00:06:47] Speaker B: that, you know, that program is pretty new to me. Like, I really didn't know too much about it, to be honest with you.
It kind of the whole bone marrow think it was very strange. My process with it in. I think it was when I was at Stony Brook, still probably Stony Brook University, 2010 or 11.
There was a young man who, I mean, he was a kid. He was maybe 8th, 9th grade, got diagnosed, big baseball fan. We had him come take some swings with us, all that stuff. Good kid. And then we all kind of became donors, you know, sweet cheek swab just in there. Well, I'm sure we'll get into it, but the. A lot of the factors that people think is actually not exactly what it really. What the whole thing. The whole thing really is. So that was the first thing. Now, he did not find a donor, ended up passing away, which was. Was tragic.
Mike Marin, who is our pitching coach, is currently the pitching coach at Old Dominion, actually became a match with somebody and ended up doing it prior. And I would guess that was like 2011. Ish. Maybe 12.
So that kind of was my first experience with even any of this. And then my personal story came more in like to 2022. So it was a little bit different.
Different path and clearly kind of stumbled on it. And then obviously it became pretty personal.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And Crystal, what are you guys biggest challenges as far as educational pieces as far as actually people. There's probably a lot of people that don't even know this is an option.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Joe kind of hit, hit, hit it on the head where there's a ton of myths that we are faced. Like, when you hear bone marrow donation, you're like, why the heck would I ever want to do that? I can remember swabbing someone. And we make sure that people know what they're signing up for, because the athletes, you know, we set up a table, the athletes are in front of it. They have signs and music. We make it really fun. But sometimes, like, you know, they're just bringing people warm bodies over and we. We need to slow it down and make sure that students know what they're signing up for. And so one time I asked someone like a football player, like, do you know what you're doing? And they're like, you like, kind of crack your leg or something like that. I'm like, man, if your mom was here, I'd have her maybe like, give you a little pat. Why would you sign up for someone to crack your leg?
90% of the time when a blood cancer patient, someone that has leukemia, lymphoma, maybe a blood disorder like sickle cell or aplastic anemia, their treatment's not working. They need a blood stem cell or marrow transplant. 90% of the time it's going to be a blood stem cell transplant, which takes roughly four to six hours. You sit in a chair, a machine takes blood out of one arm, runs it through an apheresis machine, and then returns the rest of your blood right back to your body. And you kind of collect a little baggie of stem cells and that's flown to a patient, infused into them, and then literally, you hopefully gave them the second that they desperately need. That's their only chance to survive at that point. So it's critical that they find a match. And there's only a 25% chance that somebody has a match in their family.
So 70% of the time we need someone to swab their cheek and just kind of volunteer, like, yeah, I'll do it if someone needs me. So.
So the myths are like, it's painful, it hurts for athletes, it's like, I'm going to miss a season if I do this.
We, once we get a chance to have a five minute conversation with someone, we can usually debunk most of those myths and educate in a way that someone's like, you know, they still may say no, which we don't mind, but most of the time people are like, yeah, this doesn't sound too bad after all. I'm gonna sign up.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: How similar to giving plasma is it?
[00:10:37] Speaker C: It's very similar. So. And sometimes we have people that they'll hold up a picture, they've got the yellow bag of plasma and they have their stem cells. So we always say it's, it's pretty typical to donating plasma.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Joe, go through your process because, I mean, I didn't know until we talked about in the car ride when you're here. So just take everybody through the whole process for you.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah, very interesting how the whole thing played out. So my dad, you know, pretty healthy guy, you know, big baseball fan, probably just like yours, and you know, was always coming to games, always doing that stuff, you know, totally fine, really in. And I was kind of thinking back like this such a blur in some ways of, like the year and stuff. But it was 20, 2021, like November, December.
Started feeling a little different. And then it was in December.
It was like, it just exhausted, like, to the point where, like, he park his car and was out of breath. Like he ran a marathon to walk to his house immediately, you know, talked to his doctor. They said, hey, come on in.
And that kind of process happened through, like, that December, January into 2022, and ended up getting a transfusion. They're saying, hey, you know what? You're going to start feeling a little bit better after this as we kind of do some of this. And they had a bone marrow biopsy, which, you know, is much more worse than anything that I ever had to do, which I try to tell people. They're like, yeah, nobody's grinding your bones up. I'm like, the person that's in the chair, they got a lot worse than you do. I say that all the time.
Fast forwarding a little bit, you know, ended up being in the hospital for a couple weeks, and then that's kind of when they, like, crushed his immune system and kind of brought that down to zero in preparation for the transplant. And I was a match.
There was one other match that was somebody in Spain. And my. It was during our season, and my parents are like, oh, you know what? Let's just do. I'm like, the. The games are relevant. Like, I could, you know, like, I don't care about that. Like, I'll come out. Our team will understand. Everybody will understand. Like, I'm really not that important in regards to the whole scheme of what this whole thing is involved with.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: With our.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: With our players.
And I think the biggest thing was just kind of understanding, like, how important all that stuff was.
So we ended up doing the transplant, and the prep for the transplant's interesting, but it's not terrible. Like, you know, I got there, you know, they did physical on me. Hey, yeah, you're good. All the stuff matched. Everything was good. You're certainly capable of doing that. And then I ended up doing the prep for it, which was very simple. I mean, there's a couple little needles you kind of each. Each morning you put in your stomach, which isn't like a big deal. You pinch your little belly and you pop it in. And I think, is it Tums, Krista,
[00:13:29] Speaker A: that you take I.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: For. For the side effects?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: No, like, the beginning, yeah. Like the prep of it. Because that actually builds the bone marrow, which is wild. Yes, I think it was. I think it was tums. Anyway, they say, hey, you could have some bone pain and things like that prior, because your bones. Because there's so much marrow in there. And honestly, what it felt like was like, if you haven't thrown BP in a while and you throw, or you haven't swung a fungal in a while, and you swing, and the next day you're like, oh, man. Like, you know, that's it. I had nothing more than just feeling kind of normal soreness.
And then on May. Ended up being on May 20th.
I'm sorry. It was May of 22, so it was May 10th. We ended up doing the.
The transplant, and after a couple weeks of him being in there and me prepping for it, we went in. It was very interesting, just like you said. I sat in a chair with my arms out, like, this one's going in, one's coming out. I'm seeing it happening.
Nurses, everybody was great. It was in Colorado, was at UC Health and in that area. So I was sitting there doing that. Hung out.
I watched tv. I don't know, probably listened to some podcasts on the abca.
And, you know, Ryan got me through it, I guess. But it was interesting. I'm watching the bag fill up, and I'm looking at this, and I'm trying to be in, like, man, this is wild. So then it finished.
They checked me out. Everything looks good. I went upstairs, followed the bag upstairs.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Wild.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: I'm sitting there on a laptop, like, I'm on right now. He's giving them. They give him some Benadryl because they're, you know, they say, hey, you probably should take this. And it knocked him out. The Benadryl knocked him out. We're playing UNC Asheville on a Tuesday.
Could have been a Wednesday. I'm going to say it was a Tuesday.
And he's asking me questions while I'm watching the bone marrow go in on the stand, and he's like, hey, how's it going? I was like, very uneventful. Nothing. It's, you know, kind of a painful midweek. I got nothing for you. And he's like. And then he'd fall asleep. Then he would ask me again. Then he'd fall asleep, and the bag emptied. And.
And that was it. And it was kind of an interesting process of how it all went and how simple it really was in the whole scheme of things now. Yeah, it was my father, obviously, it's different maybe for some people, but in the fact that, you know, and I'm not a doctor or a medical professional by any means, but there is a lot of cancers that you can solve. There isn't a lot of cancers that you can help. And the fact that you can do it with this one is a no brainer for everybody should be involved in. And that's probably the biggest thing that I share with people. And I didn't make it super public or do anything like that, but I share things with people, you know, when we talk about it. And it's just an easy way to do it and really not painful, not invasive. I mean it's, it's two needles in your arm. One's coming in, one's coming out, and that's it. So it was pretty cool. And he's doing great. I talked to him this morning actually telling him we were doing this and he was helping me with the timeline because I was making sure I didn't get it right. And you know, he feels great, healthy as ever. And it works now. It's a process. I mean, that person certainly, you know, he went through it like he went through it after. And it was, I can tell you this, it's much worse for them than it was for me or any donor.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Krista, the success rate pretty high for this.
[00:16:52] Speaker C: It depends on the patient. There's so many diagnoses and so we don't have any stats that says if you get a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, it's 95% chance that you're going to make it. What we do know is when it is successful, what are the factors that lean into that? And so the younger the don, the better. So like Joe said, like the patient, the recipient goes through it. After a transplant, the body has to accept the donor's immune system as its own. And the immune system has to check or I'm sorry, accept the body as its own. So two things have to happen to make that work. And so the best chance, not just saving a patient's life, but having them thrive and minimizing those side effects, is having a younger donor. So 18 to 25 is actually the sweet spot.
And the get in the game program because we're on with student athletes and on campuses, the average age of a donor for our registry over 90. I think 4% of our donors fall between 18 and 29. So we get young, healthy, diverse donors on the registry because ethnicity does matter.
If you know you're Caucasian, you have a really good chance of finding A match on our registry because it has a large percentage of white people on the registry that will say, yes, we are working desperately to diversify our registry. So African Americans only have a 23. Well, actually just increased to 29% chance of finding a match.
Latinx and Asian community members have, you know, like 40, 50%. So we're becoming more diversified as a nation and as a world, which is a great thing. But if you're like Japanese, black and Mexican mix, like you got to find a donor that's like this, that has your ethnicity. So. But young donors are our sweet spot. And so. And there are about 10 or 8, 8 HLA types which are kind of DNA markers. And so when you have the Most perfect match, 8 out of 8 is going to also give you the best success rate. But NMDP is making great strides in finding if a donor is a seven out of eight match or a six out of eight match, that medicine's always advancing. So we're finding ways of making less than perfect or almost perfect matches just as successful.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: And this is the best option for treatment, correct?
I mean, as opposed to anything else? Cause I have family members that have had cancer and obviously radiation, chemotherapy. This is the best option for treatment on this, correct?
[00:19:50] Speaker C: I would say that it's the best option when the other options that the patient has gone through is you've exhaust, you can't get any more chemo, you've been in clinical trials and then or studies have shown that if you have a certain cancer that's very aggressive and you know, they'll go through one round, but they are already prepping for a transplant because they know that that's probably going to be the case. So they start searching, they swab the family. Is anyone a match there? And they'll look to the NMDP registry to see if that patient has some donors on our date in our database. So if, if a patient's lucky, they've got 2, 3, 4, 5 potential donors on our registry that they can call on. And then what our company's extremely, you know, adamant about or, and passionate about is that education piece when we sign them up so that when they do get that call, it could be three months later, three years later, 10 years later, that when we call them, they are doing backflips and cartwheels with excitement that they're going to be able to have the chance. We don't want to have to go back to a patient's family and, and say, you know, we have a match, but they're not willing to move forward.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: That's interesting. I only think I'll follow up with that is he did go through the chemo stuff and the radiation, so, like, it's, you know, he hit that on the front side as they were trying to figure out, okay, what's the next step going to be. And so. Yeah, that's a good point. I didn't even bring that up through, you know, that, you know, agonizing process early on.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: And, Joe, you're having your team do it, correct? Because the. Getting the game numbers are awesome because over 500 teams, 300,000 participants, and then 2100 donations.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: I'm totally. Yeah, I mean, we haven't really done much. I'm totally on board to doing whatever, and we can certainly, you know, pump that up and go. I, you know, like I said, I never really publicized my. My thing. I didn't ever want it to make it more than it was about, you know, the circumstance we were in. I mean, obviously, pretty. My dad's a pretty private guy, so I don't know that he wanted that, but, yeah, I'm on board for doing all that. I think we can continue to. To bump up the numbers. And I did it in my 40s, so I wasn't in the sweet spot, and I'm still breathing. So we're good.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: Yeah, we have a lot of overqualified individuals, especially males, that get quite upset when we don't. We can'. You're like, what do you mean? You don't want my stem cells?
[00:22:18] Speaker B: You know, like, you're overqualified, too, dude. You're overqualified, too. You're in your 20s, dude. Come on, Christopher.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: People listening in, like, how do they get involved with this? So obviously we have a lot of listeners, so any teams that aren't doing this or coaches or athletes that aren't doing this, how do they. How do they get in touch with you?
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Yes. I mean, this is what's so great about this partnership that we have with the abca.
We are heavily focused.
The get in the Game program has been around since 2008, so been a long time. But it was built off the black book of coach Andy Talley, which was obviously, given his proximity to the East Coast, a lot of Northeast football teams that work with us and even east coast teams in general.
But we started, gosh, at least five or six years ago, really kind of opening up and saying, okay, this has been great, what we've been able to do in the football space. But there's obviously, you know, a lot of other Teams. And so we work, you know, we go to the volleyball coaches convention.
Basketball, you know, baseball, field hockey. We're definitely digging into women's sports as well. So if somebody wants to get involved.
And Joe, don't feel bad you haven't heard about the program. Again, it's just been so football heavy. Although we have been at Stony Brook with the football team, but baseball gets
[00:23:44] Speaker B: overshadowed by football all the time.
[00:23:47] Speaker C: We're, you know, I love our football team, but I'm, I'm ready to dive into all baseball, especially because it's touched the baseball world with, unfortunately, Eddie Kaufman out of Roanoke. You know, we did a social post with the abca. We, he unfortunately lost his battle to all last year. We've got some coaches that are recipients. We have some baseball players that have donated. We've got some really good stories that are, you know, tied to college baseball and even professional baseball club baseball.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: You'll like our community much better. So it's going to be awesome.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yes, for sure.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Hey, I'm here for it, but so get in the game. At nmdp, which I know is a tongue twister, that's a simple email. My name is Krista Ross krossmdp.org We also have a website, so there's ways to find us.
And it's very simple. You just let us know you want your. Get your team involved.
We train the team. I always say you wouldn't, you know, go and play a game without watching some film or looking at some stats or some highlights or kind of scoping out your competition. So we make sure that we give some information to the student athletes. That takes about half hour to 45 minutes. And then for a couple hours, we set up on campus, swab some cheeks and then for a very low lift, because we bring everything, we plan everything. Your team can get some people to swab. And then I get a donor report every Monday. So if I, you know, if I look on it and see that, you know, East Tennessee State has a donor or, you know, Stony Brook has a donor, I reach out to the coaching staff and let them know, guess what? Your four hours of work literally just gave a patient a second chance at life.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Krista, is there a gender component with donations and recipients?
[00:25:41] Speaker C: So that's a good question.
Males and females can donate.
There is a preferred gender with it being male to donate because just generally speaking, males have a larger body mass index and veins are larger. So it might take a female seven to eight hours to donate when it would take a male two, three or four and so the shorter, you know, we just. We don't want to time out at eight hours for a female to donate. So when all things.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: My daughter would not be able to donate. Her veins are way too small.
[00:26:17] Speaker C: Exactly. So registry wise, we swab. About 51% of our registrants are female over male. But when it comes to donors, most of our donors are male. From the get in the Game program. That's not necessarily org wide. NMDP works with Greek life nursing students.
We, we on a college campus or in a community, we're everywhere. But just getting. The game is only athletic. So I can. I'm only quoting stats for our program,
[00:26:48] Speaker A: but males, female athletes are tough too though. Like I wouldn't put it.
They're tough. I know a female athlete would sit in there for seven or eight hours for sure.
[00:26:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And it's not always. I went to a donation with a field hockey player who played with my daughter and she donated in like three hours. She was a beast. Like, you know, but doctors just, again, on paper, when they're looking, only on paper and they don't know the attitude that, you know, I think females are tougher than males anyway. But, um, you know, they're going to pick a male just purely on physics, you know, the, the build of the
[00:27:25] Speaker A: science space part of it.
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Did you play at gw? Krista, you said you went to gw. Do you play sport at gw?
[00:27:31] Speaker C: Oh, no. I'm a regret. I have fomo. I'm like, I was a college or not a. I was a high school athlete, but when I got to college, I worked in rec sports. I was a volleyball official, you know, and I hung. I lived with volleyball players. And you know, everyone thought I was on a team, but no, I didn't. So this is a perfect fit because I grew up, I'm from Philly, so we love our sports and I just love sports in general. So it's been a great fit to save lives through the power of sport. I don't know what else could be a better combination.
You know, I've looked because I don't want to be biased, but it's, it's. You can't. You can't compete.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: And Joe, congrats on all the success you guys are having at etsu. You and I have talked about that. I know it's. It's hard, it's difficult in this climate right now, and you guys are killing it. So, like, I'm very happy for you because we all know how challenging it is right now in this climate, you guys are doing a great job there.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: No doubt about that. Thank you.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: I have a little thing that there's getting the game karma. So a lot of the teams that make the postseason, you know, I keep an eye on it. I have a stick stat that, like, when I look at it, I'm like, most of these teams are getting the game team. So, you know, if you're looking for some luck, Joe, I may be able to help you out.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah, I can use it all. We can use it all. No doubt. Absolutely. The only thing I can just follow up with again is it is such a simple procedure in the aspect of what you are personally doing, in the scheme of how big and large the impact is.
It is so simple.
You, you know, you're.
You get notified, there's a little bit of prep, and that's it. And. And you're.
You kind of hang out and the hospitals feed you. You hang out. You know, honestly, you get a chance. I met some really cool people, some cool nurses, some new people, and it's interesting to kind of see how that process works.
But it's. It's something that is really, really easy. And it's tough sometimes with athletes because a lot of them are there, it seems like. I don't know if it's just our guys or everybody, but everybody's afraid of needles, and they're afraid of this and they're afraid of that. And I think when the perspective hits that, like, your little. This little thing can save somebody's life, like, you either are going to be that person or you're not. And if you're not that person, like, I probably don't have a lot in common with you. But that being said, like, it's. It's so easy. It's so easy, really. And it's.
It's just got to get past the people that think, like, they're driving a stake in your bone and sucking the bone marrow. They are not doing that. I can't be more clear to say that you are basically sitting there and almost like you're giving blood. That's basically what it's like, except it's in two arms. It is a process that I think it's.
It's so funny when people say that. They're like, oh, my God. So was your back sore? I'm like, well, my back sore, but has zero to do with that. You know, it's.
It's because I'm old now, but so, yeah, it is definitely something that I can't Express that enough. I don't know if it's coming across on the screen, but it's an easy one.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Cool. Anything else we need to cover before I let you guys go?
[00:30:41] Speaker C: I'll just double down on what Joe just said. A lot of people focus on what a transplant or donation does for the patient. It obviously saves their life, and, yes, that's an enormous impact. I can't tell you how many donors I've spoken with. Again, to Joe's point is that it changes their life. Like, they, you know, they just. I don't know what it is about it. I mean, obviously, when. If you can walk around, say, you save someone's life, it's pretty cool. We've brought some donors and recipients together.
It's. I mean, not a dry eye in the room.
It's. I could go on and on and tell you some stories, and it's just tremendous. But I just love hearing how it affects the donor themselves, because that's what, that's what it's all about. There's so many crazy things going on in the world, and sports, et cetera, especially. So this keeps good in the game. You know, this is. Life is bigger than the game. Games are important. Athletics are important. But, you know, these athletes are going to go on into the world. And to be able to say, like, when I was in college, I swabbed my cheek at some random event that I really didn't even know what the heck it was. And then I went on, and now, I mean, I've got football players who has the recipient in their wedding as the flower girl. Like, it's, you know, so if you're a coach, your athletic administrator or director, let's. Let's get you on board because baseball can save some lives.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really cool, Joe.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Anything else?
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Interesting story. Now, I, I, you know, without being kind of redundant, I. I think that's it. It's. It's just a. It's an interesting. It's an interesting process of actually seeing, you know, something that can save your. Save somebody's life. Going into a bag right next to your left ear.
And it's pretty simple. So I can't encourage anybody. I mean, I just encourage you enough to. To give it a shot because it's.
It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It's.
The nurse kept saying, it's magical. It's magical. And I was like, yeah, I. I guess, you know, like, my dad has cancer. Like, I'm trying to. Like, none of it's working right. Now in my brain, and then when I'm sitting in the room with him, you know, watching a baseball game, that is utterly meaningless, you know, because as baseball coaches and probably coaches and athletes in general, we take ourselves really serious. Like, we really do. And probably too serious because, like, in the scheme of life, like, it's. It's very minuscule and not as important as something like this. That's the only thing I can say.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Thanks so much for your time, guys. Appreciate it.
[00:33:12] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Ryan.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I should, you know what I should have shared? I should have shared that I, I gave, like, during that whole thing where he was in there, you know, before and after I gave him, you know, the bootleg stolen password for the abca. And he listened and looked at all that stuff. Like, okay, he must have watched every single thing and listened to every single thing he told. He's like, man, besides you telling me who's coming on your team next year, he's like, I loved listening to all that stuff. And I mean, it's tough because you're, you know, you're trapped. Like, you're kind of in, you know, in the bed and you're trapped. So, like, the ABCA helped him too. Love. It's good. Love it.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Cool. Awesome. We'll have a great weekend, guys.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Kristen, if you tell me what we got to do and how I can help with the department, if you want to get my number or something, I have your email.
[00:33:57] Speaker C: I'll reach out and we can, I
[00:33:59] Speaker B: can, I can even talk to the department at a meeting or something and.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we'll talk. Yeah, we'll talk. I just.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Crystal, let me know if you're. When you're coming, if you're coming down there. I'll. I'll come over and meet you.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: It's not a far drive for me.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Such a great opportunity. I love everyone.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: I haven't swabbed either, so I need to, I need to do that even though I'm old now. I'm 52, so overqualified.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: You're out of the window, buddy. You're out of the window. You're out.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: But this is great. This is gonna get.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: I'm very healthy, though. Like, that's.
[00:34:31] Speaker C: I don't doubt it.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: I don't doubt it.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: That's what we all tell ourselves.
I'm kicking good for a 52 year old.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: All right, thank you so much, guys. Appreciate you. Okay.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Yep. Thanks, man.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Yeah, See ya.
Getting the game is a phenomenal way to get your team involved. Giving back and saving lives. I would highly encourage you to reach out to Krista to get her onto your campus with your sports teams. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale and Matt west in the ABCI office for I Love on the Podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email are brownleebca.org Twitter, Instagram or TikTok coachbeyondersgrabca or direct message me via the MyABisa app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: And there's no that way Yep, wait for another day and the world will always return and your lives never for yearning and you know that way Wait for another
[00:36:00] Speaker A: day.
[00:36:07] Speaker C: Sam.
