It’s normal for college students to make many life-changing decisions, but during his senior year C.J. Logan made a life-saving decision: he became a bone marrow donor. The long-time student-athlete recently shared his personal story with BlackDoctor.org, highlighting the critical need for more Black donors.
As a football player, I spent years focused on what my body could do on the field. I put in hours working out and practicing to stay in peak condition.
But one of the best things I’ve been able to do with this body had nothing to do with sports. It was getting the chance to save someone’s life by donating my bone marrow.
I’m part of the national Be The Match Registry®, the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors. I learned about the registry when I was a freshman at Villanova University. Coach Andy Talley, who retired in 2016 after 31 years as Villanova’s head football coach, has been so passionate about getting people to join that he started his own bone marrow foundation. I’m so glad he recruited me.
What Be The Match® does is really important – donating bone marrow can be the cure for a person living with a disease like sickle cell anemia or a blood cancer like leukemia. That’s amazing, if you think about it. Regular people can be a cure for cancer.
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But matching patients with a donor is harder than you’d think, especially for people who look like me.
Until I joined the registry, I had no idea that patients are most likely to match someone of their own ethnic background. Or that Black Americans, who need a bone marrow transplant have the lowest odds of finding a match. This is because, we have the most diverse genetic tissue types compared to other ethnicities, and have fewer potential donors in the registry.
Saving a patient’s life can come down to one person out of millions.
Joining the registry is easy – just a little cheek swab. I did it as a freshman in 2013. Two years later, I
