College athletes are capable of the most amazing things, and not all of them take place on the field. Some, in fact, come at the expense of what takes place on the field.

November is National Marrow Awareness Month and this tale will make you even more aware.

Last spring, two high school students approached the football team at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and asked if the players would be interested in being listed on the national bone-marrow registry, through Be The Match.

Every player on the team said yes, and was tested. The players were told that there was higher than a 1-in-500 chance of a match (150,000 Americans are diagnosed with a blood cancer each year, and 6 of 10 have to go outside the family to try to seek a match). People have been on the list for 20 years and never been found to be a match.

Surprisingly, W&M’s kicker, John Carpenter of Cumberland, Md., learned he was a match. He doesn’t know the person’s name who would be the recipient, just that doctors wanted to do the transplant as soon as possible. So he went with it.

“The decision made itself,” said Carpenter.

Carpenter is no ordinary kicker. A senior, he’s eighth on the school’s all-time list for field goals made. He was third-team All-Colonial Athletic Association last year and he is a finalist for the Fred Mitchell Award this year, given to the top place-kicker out of more than 750 FCS, Division II, III, NAIA and NJCAA football teams.

The medical procedure involved caused Carpenter to have an enlarged spleen and he wasn’t able to play in the team’s last two games. W&M beat Delaware in the first, but lost to James Madison, damaging its hopes for a playoff bid. In that game, the reserve kicker missed a 38-yard field goal with the score tied and 4:30 to play.

How many college football programs would allow their starting kicker to miss two games in the middle of a playoff chase to donate marrow? This one.

You want real perspective? Just ask coach Jimmy Laycock.

“A football game here, a football game there against somebody’s life? It’s a no-brainer,” he said.

Remember that the next time you hear a sporting event described as “life and death.” It’s not. Life and death are life and death.

Today’s Question

Is this about the best story you’ve ever heard of real sacrifice in sports?

Answers in the comment box, please.
 
 
Be The Match Registry is the connection between patients searching for a cure and life-saving bone marrow donors. As the largest and most diverse donor registry in the world, they help more patients get the transplant they need.

Take your first step to being someone’s cure by joining our bone marrow registry today.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .