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Cortland Football to Host Bone Marrow Testing Drive May 2

04/21/2015 

The SUNY Cortland football team is calling on the local community to get in the game and join the fight against diseases affecting bone marrow, such as leukemia. The program will host its seventh annual "Get in the Game, Save a Life" National Marrow Donor Program Drive from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, in Corey Union on campus.

Joining the bone marrow registry is easy and pain-free; volunteers simply need to swab the inside of a person's cheek for 30 seconds. But while there are millions of registered marrow donors worldwide, only about 250 matches are found each year. In many cases, there's a 1-in-80,000 chance that a registered donor will be a match.

The Cortland Football registry has already factored into saving four lives, most notably for linebacker John Stephens. He registered in the program in 2010, was identified as a match for Clara Boyle, an infant in California battling leukemia, and his subsequent marrow donation helped save her life. Clara and her family came to Cortland in 2012 to meet Stephens and watch a Red Dragon football game. More recently, wide receivers coach Nate Pagan and former defensive back (and current track and field jumper) Andre Green have been identified as matches and have gone through the donation process.

For more information on the bone marrow drive, contact the Cortland football office at (607) 753-4912.

National Marrow Donor Program Web Site


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