LARAMIE – A seemingly ordinary Tuesday in the heart of the University of Wyoming campus could lead to something extraordinary.
 
Perhaps a Cowboy saving a life.
 
The Wyoming football program partnered with "Get in the Game" to encourage people to sign up and register as potential donors in the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) on April 28 in the Wyoming Union.
 
In the span of a few hours, 113 people volunteered for cheek swabs to have their DNA added to the NMDP registry.
 
"Working with football teams has been an enormous way for us to grow not only the size of the registry, but its diversity as well," said Paula Davis, manager of member recruitment at NMDP. "We're trying to make the likelihood of finding a donor more equitable for patients."
 
Joe Caulfield, UW's Associate Athletics Director for Football Operations/GM, reached out to "Get in the Game" after working with the NMDP during previous stops in his career.
 
About 25 football players and returning members on the men's basketball team volunteered to register peers and themselves.
 
Once added to the registry, potential donors could receive a call in a matter of weeks or years down the road alerting them that they are a match to help patients fight certain blood cancers.
 
"I was fortunate to have the opportunity to bring this program to the University of North Dakota, and we had a great experience. When I approached Coach (Jay) Sawvel about it, he didn't hesitate and was fully in support of it," Caulfield said. "With the demands on student-athletes' time, it can be hard to find things to combine community service and connecting with the community that work with our schedule. This is an awesome way to encourage and hopefully instill a sense of community service in our guys, while also getting them into the University community to make an impact.
 
"And the registration drive is fun. In setting it up, it really isn't a big ask. What we need is for our guys, who naturally carry a presence on campus, to show up and encourage people to hear the message. We're not selling them, we're just educating and informing, and it usually sells itself."
 
Only 7% of donors identify as Black or African American and only 13% identify as Hispanic or Latino in the NMDP registry.
 
The Get in the Game event at UW registered 31 racially and ethnically diverse donors.
 
"Matches are made on genetics not blood types, so people usually match with someone of a similar ethnic background," Davis said. "The disparities in the makeup of the registry translate into inequities in patients' abilities to find a matching donor."
 
If a donor matches with a patient, there are two main ways they can help.
 
One is a peripheral blood stem donation, which is like donating plasma or platelets. The apheresis process involves five days of shots to boost blood cell production, and donors are usually back to their normal routine within one or two days.
 
A bone marrow donation is done while under general anesthesia while doctors use a needle to withdraw marrow from the hip bone. Donors usually get back to their normal routine within two to seven days.
 
The NMDP pays for all donation and travel costs.
 
If a Cowboy gets a call, there is precedent for active college football players making donations. Arizona defensive back Ayden Garnes, who was a teammate of UW defensive end Jack Dunkley at Duquesne, saved a young mother's life with a bone marrow donation.
 
"We've had a lot of football players who have been called and gone on to donate," Davis said. "We've had some who have done it during the season and some who have done it in the offseason. We work hard to support patients and donors."
 
In 2008, NMDP contacted Andy Talley, the Villanova football coach at the time, to launch what has evolved into the Get in the Game initiative.
 
"Coach Talley heard about the need to add young, healthy people to the registry and he said, I've got 100 guys on my team right here, let me get them at it," Davis said. "That sort of spurred this whole program. Now we work with over 300 different football programs across the country."
 
Over the years, college football teams have helped add over 250,000 potential donors to the registry, which has resulted in more than 1,900 transplants.
 
Caulfield's wife, Morganne, matched with a patient years after participating.
 
"My wife registered in one of these drives as an undergraduate student and later matched with someone as she neared her 30th birthday," Caulfield said. "We went through the process, which was surprisingly simple, for her to donate stem cells and help someone else in the process. I saw firsthand the need, and it moved from theoretical to actual. And it wasn't a particularly big ask to make a potentially huge difference."
 
UW football plans to partner with NMDP to make future Get in the Game events even bigger.
 
"People who were added to the registry will start getting calls as potential matches," Davis said. "To be able to come back to the team year after year and say here's how many people total over the course of this program we've added to the registry and here's how many of them have gone on to donate is really where the rubber meets the road.
 
"That's where the players and even the coaches say, 'Oh my gosh, I stood around in the student union and talked to people for two hours and someone who I spoke to just went on and saved a life.'"
 
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
 
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