Football coach Al Bagnoli paced the Palestra floor just after noon on Sunday and told members of his team to rouse classmates from their collective hangover.
"You guys gonna call some people?" he said to a group of chatting players. "Drag 'em down here."
Soon enough, a smattering of students filtered in, and by the end of the day the team had helped to add around 150 names to the National Marrow Donor Program's registry, said Yvette Torres, the NMDP's point person on the project. The database is used to identify potential donor matches.
The screening, in which almost all players took part, is part of an ongoing partnership with colleges including Villanova, Harvard, Rhode Island, Maine, Temple and Penn.
All but Villanova participated for the first time. Wildcats coach Andy Talley began the program 17 years ago; he says it was after reading news reports about blood disorders. Since then, First and Goal has registered more than 5,000 potential donors. Last year, Talley resolved to take his case to other football coaches.
"When you have someone like coach Talley . he has the credibility and the influence [to do it]," Torres said. Talley's goal is now for the nine participating colleges to reach 1,000 new donors annually.
Several members of the team said the Penn coaching staff has been on the lookout for opportunities to get involved with charity work.
"When we came for preseason, [Bagnoli] talked about getting us more involved in the community," sophomore kicker Andrew Samson said.
Bagnoli said that he has looked at other chances for charity work but has encountered difficulties. He could not pursue charitable opportunities with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after finding out that his players would have to undergo more invasive screening - fingerprinting, for example - to participate, which would take too much time; he speculated that CHOP may have tightened its restrictions on volunteering.
"It's a sad reflection of the times," Bagnoli said.
Working with the NMDP, he said, entailed less muss and fuss. And donor registration drives have become easier in the past two years, as oral swabs have replaced blood vials as test samples.
Torres said that she conducts about three screenings per week but that athletic teams rarely participate because of tight schedules.
Not everyone there on Sunday was an athlete, though. College senior Mahesh Madhavan, president of the Penn Stem Cell Club, tried to start a drive of his own, but concluded that his time would be better spent helping the Quakers with theirs. At a registration table, he brainstormed with linemen Josh Neubert and Chris Kovalcik about how the event could be improved in the future.
Kovalcik suggested that they move the event closer to campus, align it more closely with Spring Fling festivities, or reach out to other Penn varsity teams - especially those with large rosters.
Neubert could not register as a donor because he receives insulin shots to treat his diabetes, but he listened as Torres taught him and two others how to document the donors.
He had also asked other students to join in during his classes, but he still felt that he might have done more.
"Professors never give you enough time to talk," he complained.
Maybe next year. The team plans to participate in the program again.
Of those who need a marrow transplant, such as leukemia or lymphoma patients, roughly 70 percent - more than 10,000 annually - do not find a match in a family member.
