Published: August 06, 2008 12:00 am            

Sooners follow Stoops, become potential donors

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops was quickly ushered out of the Switzer Center's Red Room Wednesday morning. There was no breaking emergency, he just had an added task to go along with Media Day.

The OU coach used the morning to go through process of becoming a potential bone marrow donor.

"It's a rare when you might get a chance to save a life," he said. "This process could lead to that for someone."

Most of OU's players followed joined him the process. They all gave a DNA sample that will be registered with the National Marrow Donor Program.

Those stricken with leukemia, anemia and some immune deficiency diseases can be sick to the point where the body doesn't produce enough blood cells or produces defective ones.

Bone marrow transplants do not provide 100 percent assurance that the disease will not recur, but can increase the likelihood of a cure or at least prolong the period of disease-free survival for many patients.

More than 10,000 Americans are stricken with life-threatening diseases that can be cured with bone marrow transplants through unrelated donors.

Freshman linebacker Austin Box went through the screening process to become a donor Wednesday morning.

"Coach Stoops addressed the team with it and it's an issue that a lot of people are affected by," Box said. "Any way our team and I can help, I'm all for it."

The NMDP estimates up to 6,000 people are looking for a donor match on any given day. Over 11 million people have signed up for the program.

When the database generates a match, the NMDP contacts the registered donor to see if that person is still willing to participate. The donor then would go through a medical screening to make sure the procedure will be safe and be given the choice to give either bone marrow or peripheral blood.

Stoops said he got the idea after a group from Wagner College in New York held a similar registry. He also thought holding it on his team's media day would draw some needed attention to the NMDP and what it's trying to do.

"We get coverage for a lot of things, but none that are quite as important as this," Stoops said.

        

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