Sports Bright: Tom Walter Kidney Kevin Jordan – NCAA College Baseball

Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter imparted something far more valuable than baseball to his player Kevin Jordan.

Tom Walter Gives the Gift of Life to One of His Players

For all the problems in professional sports, college athletics often make the pros seem downright clean and respectable in comparison. At bare minimum, the pros can be considered more honest–no one denies that they are a business, while big time college programs still claim that they are “amateur” even as they rake in the big bucks.

Whatever.

Everyone but the NCAA and the schools themselves recognize that the universities use their student-athletes in the money sports until their eligibility is up, they leave school early, or they drop out or kicked out for other reasons. Not that the kids are entirely free from blame, either. Although the majority play their games for better or for worse, there are the Cam Newton’s and one-and-done’s who contribute to the problems.

But considering everything that we know goes on–and God knows what that we don’t–today’s Sports Bright is a wonderful example of humanity. The sports element is happenstance, but like so many stories, perhaps the best of them, that’s the point. After all, humanity is what unites us all, athletes and non.

From ThePostGame.com: http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201102/wake-forest-baseball-coach-donates-kidney-player-suffering-rare-condition

In summary, Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter recently donated a kidney to one of his players, Kevin Jordan, a freshman whom Walter had recruited but as of yet barely knew, yet to play a single game. Jordan has ANCA vasculitis, and his condition was deteriorating rapidly. The wait list for a kidney could have taken years, time that Jordan did not have. If Walter had not been a match and willing to donate, Jordan most likely would have soon died.

Jordan may never play baseball for Walter, but what his coach gave him is something far more valuable.