Football Holds Fifth Annual Be The Match Registry Event

BOULDER – The University of Colorado football team held its fifth annual Be The Match registry event with the Colorado Marrow Donor Program on Wednesday inside Balch Fieldhouse.

Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre's teams have now participated in the program for eight years, three while he was head coach at San Jose State and five now at CU. Be The Match is a nationwide program that manages the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world.

The process is simple and quick for the volunteers who came in to join the registry. All it entails is a mouth swab and providing some basic information.

"This is a great day in our program that I enjoy and our players enjoy every year," MacIntyre said. "Finding bone marrow donor matches, it is a great cause to save a life and is really special.

"In the last four years that we've done it (at CU), we've had six matches. This is our fifth year to do it here and hopefully we'll get a couple of people to match that can help save a life."

Christian Snyder, Director of the Colorado Marrow Donor Program for the Bonfils Blood Center in Denver, said CU's registry is one of their most successful drives every year. Wednesday's event saw 213 people sign up, which is about three weeks' worth of the recruitment goals for Bonfils.

"We keep coming back because it is successful," Snyder said. "We actually recruit about 10 percent of our annual total for our program, we cover Colorado and Wyoming for Be The Match, so this is big drive for us."

Snyder said that the collaboration with MacIntyre and the Buffaloes is very important on several fronts. One as a springboard to help get the word out and support the cause, but also because football players, or young and large males in general, are popular donors.

"What transplant centers are looking for are young people. Looking for large people with a big mass, but also healthy," Snyder said. "They are looking primarily for males, so if you get a football team together and a lot of them do join the registry they become very popular donors."

The CU student-athletes are not required to participate in the Be The Match program, but the vast majority do. With around 20-25 newcomers each year, that is a good amount of their ideal population going into their registry and then you add in the many others from the campus community who sign up and it becomes a successful drive as they look for matches in their national marrow donor program. The target age of those who register is between 18-44 years-old.

CU's event has added around 200 people on average annually into the registry. In general, Snyder said that the drive with the Buffs generally results in 1-in-60 going on to donate. Nationwide statistics say that 1-in-430 who register go on to donate.

"I think just those simple numbers show that these drives, the people that we add through these drives, the donors are a lot more popular with what transplant doctors are looking for," Snyder said.

Last year, CU linebacker Derek McCartney became the first Buff player to become a donor through the program. Wide receiver Danny Galloway became the second this year.

Every year, more than 10,000 people from all ethnic backgrounds are diagnosed with life-threatening blood diseases who hope for a marrow/stem cell donor who can make their transplant possible. Sadly, 70 percent of these patients do not have a compatible donor in their family and need to search the Be The Match Registry® for an unrelated donor. Registry members of diverse racial and ethnic ancestry are especially needed, so every patient has the chance for a cure.

For more information on Be the Match, go to https://bethematch.org.

Football Holds Fifth Annual Be The Match Registry Event

Players Mentioned

Danny Galloway

Derek McCartney

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