For the 16th straight year, Penn football will put its players to work for a cause even more important than collecting wins at Franklin Field.
The initiative seeks to register people into a database from which they can be called upon to provide potentially life-saving bone marrow transplants to people with blood cancer.
The drive will take place in three locations on campus from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16. In previous editions of the event, nearly 3,000 people have registered into the bone marrow database. Furthermore, 24 people have been matched with patients and donated bone marrow. This winter, former Penn football assistant coach Joe Costadina became the newest Quaker to participate in the program, donating after participating in last year's version of the drive.
"I got a call a couple months after initially registering last April," he said. "They said I was a potential match, and after another call, the patient said they wanted to go with me. ... It was an easy decision. I think everyone has been affected by cancer, whether it's with family or friends, so I saw this as an opportunity to go help a family get through an issue that I've been through before."
The initiative was started by Andy Talley in 2008, and coach Ray Priore has emphasized it among the team as part of its community engagement initiatives. Priore has helped spread the program to other schools, through his network of friends in the coaching business, according to Talley.
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