More than two dozen University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football players and coaches, including head coach Russ Huesman and his wife, are joining the National Marrow Donor Program registry, which matches donors with patients who need bone marrow or cord blood.
Huesman said he was inspired to do something while talking with Baylor football coach Phil Massey, whose wife, Sandy, has leukemia and needs a marrow transplant.
"I know her and I know Phil really well, and just talking to him and looking him in the eye, I'm thinking, 'Man, what if I knew somebody that was a match and could help her out here,'" Huesman said.
Huesman suggested to his wife, Amy, that they join the registry, and after she supported the idea, he decided to ask his team to join with him. As of Wednesday, Huesman said he had 26 players and staff members turn in registration forms.
"It's fortunate. We've got a bunch of great kids," he said. "They were happy to do it. Nobody forced anybody to do it; it's a personal decision. The guys that did it, great. The guys that didn't do it, there's nothing against them, either.
"We had a bunch of them step up, which is pretty neat."
Wide receiver Sloan Allison was among the players who registered -- to find out how, go to marrow.org -- and he said he was glad to do it.
"I guess it hit home for me," Allison said, "because in 1996 my grandfather passed away from leukemia and ... I wish back then we had all the stuff we have now with people getting involved. It's a great program they've got going, and I'm going to do whatever I can."
Massey, who coaches Huesman's son Jacob, said he was unaware of Huesman's efforts to register players.
"That is really nice," Massey said. "It means a lot for him to think of me and my wife and to do that."
Huesman was familiar with the donor program from his years coaching in the Colonial Athletic Association. Villanova coach Andy Talley has been a major advocate for registration for more than 17 years, and last spring nearly 30 college football teams participated in Talley's "Get In the Game and Save a Life" campaign. That led to 8,500 new registrations.
Huesman said he might someday start his own campaign throughout the UTC athletic department or even the Southern Conference, but as the new kid on the block the second-year coach didn't want to be pushy.
"You never know down the road what we'll do," he said, "but it was great that we got the amount of people we did -- players and coaches, too."