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Thursday, December 28, 2006
Transplant cements bond
Continued from page 1C
piled into one Land Cruiser
and drove from Dallas to’
Orlando through a rain
storm so blinding they
missed their destination.
Springs is the godfather of
Walls’ oldest daughter and
Walls received the same
honor for Springs’ youngest.
And, living up to the old say
ing that “your family ig ,my '
family,” Springs recently
spoke at the funeral of Walls’
father-in-law.
That’s close, right? Well
they’re about to get a lot clos
er: Walls has agreed to
donate a kidney to help
Springs, a diabetic, regain
the quality of life he’s lacked
for nearly three years. The
disease already has forced
the amputation of his right
foot and the big and middle
toes on his left foot. His rot
ting kidney has knotted his
hands, bound him to a
wheelchair and forced him to
get up at 5 a.m. three times
a week to endure several
hours of dial5^is treatments.
Walls’ kidney is expected to
be transplanted in March.
Once the healthy one takes
over. Springs can look for
ward to his hands uncurling,
ditching his wheelchair and
never going to dialysis again.
“This man has got to love
me in order to give up some
thing. He’s taking some
risk,” Springs says. “It’s
something you can't explain,
but something that. I will
always think about every
day for the rest of my life. It’s
like getting a new battery in
a car. I’ll be able to be back to
basically almost 100 percent
normal.”
“Apiece of me is going to be
inside him and hopefully giv
ing him a lot more life than
he would’ve had otherwise,”
Walls says. “Tb me, friend
ship is imconditional.”
Springs grew up in
Williamsbnrg. Va., a short
drive from several black col
leges where friends and rela
tives played football- He fol
lowed tiie teams closely, but
picked Ohio State for him-
self
Adept at running, receiv
ing and blocking, the
Cowboys drafted him in the
fifth round in 1979, a few
months after Tbm Landry
and Roger Staubach won
their second Super Bowl.
Springs became a starter
in the same backfield as
Tbny Dorsett in his third sea
son. At training camp that
same year, he got to know
Walls, an undrafted rookie
from Grambling, and his
roommate, another black-
coUege alum.
“Ron would always come
over and give us a bunch of
crap about black colleges
being from the Negro
Leagues,” Walls says. .“Thatfs
how we started joking
around and he started hang
ing out -with us.”
During the season, they
became regulars at each
other’s houses. Springs was
married, with no kids; Walls
was living with his mom and
dating his future wife.
‘You kind of hung with the
people who did what you
did,” Springs says. ‘We were
professional beer drinkers
and margarita drinkers and
crawfish eaters.”
Offseasons were spent
touring tile state and the
country together with a bas
ketball team called the
Dallas Hoopsters, which was
really just a group of
Cowboys paid to play at
fundraisers. Springs later
took over organizing the
shows.
In the summer of 1983,
Springs organized a differ
ent kind of fundraiser. The
beneficiary was W^s, gross
ly underpaid for someone
who’d led the league in inter
ceptions and made the Pro
Bowl in each of his first two
seasons. (Walls had 11 inter
ceptions in 1981; nobody has
had more than 10 since.
Alas, he also was the comer-
back who dove in vain when
Dwight Clark made “The
Catch” to send San Francisco
past Dallas and into the
Super Bowl in the January
1982 NFC Championship
game.)
As a locker-room lawyer
and the de facto leader of the
“Ghetto Row” clique, Springs
talked Walls into telling
team officials he was “men- -
tally frustrated” and had to
retire, a word chosen to
avoid being fined for holding
out. He instructed Walls to
go into hiding, except for
once-a-day calls to Springs.
Walls resurfaced to sign a
contract that paid about four
times what he was supposed
to make, -with a hefty signing
bonus-
“The guys figured out that
me and him had concocted
this,” Springs says. “But he
got a nice new contract and
we celebrated pretty good.”
Springs went to Tkmpa
Bay for two seasons, then
retired. Walls lasted with the
Cowboys through Jimmy
Johnson’s disastrous first
season, then joined the New
York Giants in 1990, the
year Bill ParceUs guided
them to their second Super
Bowl tide.
The week of the big game.
Walls and linebacker
Lawrence Thylor - who
played Little League and
high school ball with brings
in Williamsburg - spent
hours trying to persuade
Springs to join them in
Tkmpa. Once he gave in,
Springs drove all night,
despite feeling the eSects of
a flu bug that woimd up
keeping him in his hotel
room on game day
‘T was happy to see one of
us finally win a Super Bowl,”
Springs says.
. After giving up football,
Springs stayed in good shape
by playing basketball a lot.
But he was getting tired eas
ily, which didn’t make sense.
A checkup revealed he had
Type 2 diabetes, the most
common kind. He was 34.
‘T just kept working out
and denying it for a while,”
he says. “Then, aU of a sud
den, it was attacking me
worse than it did most peo
ple.”
In 2004, at age 47, Springs
went on dialysis’ and was
added to the national trans
plant waiting list. The fol
lowing year, he lost his foot,
then began feeling the mus
cles ball up on his right arm,
then the left.
Given his age, overall
health and degenerating
condition, he was told it
would take about four years
for his number to come up -
unless he could find a donor
on his own.
Springs immediately ruled
out his children, including
his oldest son, Shawn, a cor-
nerback (Walls’ position)
who’d starred at his dad’s
alma mater and now plays
for the Washington
Redskins. Springs also has a
21-year-old dau^ter, Ayra,
soon to graduate Oklahoma
State and Ashley, a high
school senior.
Because diabetes is heredi
tary, he worries they eventu
ally will be afflicted. He
couldn’t bear the thou^t of
taking a kidney they may
end up needing either for
themselves or to donate to
their kids should one of them
be stricken-
plenty of friends and rela
tives offered to be tested, but
being a donor involves far
more than want-to.
Requirements start with
being in good health, good
shape and, in Springs’ case,
having type-0 blood.
Springs only let two people
try, a niece and a nephew.
Both were perfect matches,
until she got pregnant and
his kidney turned out not to
be strong enou^.
“Instead of being down on
himself after two failed
attempts, he wanted to just
stay active to keep his mind
and body strong so we start
ed working out together,”
Walls says. “As we started
working out together, I said.
Well, look, I know my blood
type is the same as his. Why
not give it a shot and see
what happens?”
‘T never tried to influence
him,” Springs says. “If he
was going to do it, I wanted
him to do it out of the love he
had for me.”
Springs warned Walls of
aU the painful, time-consum
ing tests and paperwork
ahead of him. He also
propped him for a 500-ques
tion psychiatric evaluation.
“That’s the one 1 thought
he’d fad,” Springs says, cack-
ling.
The process was so gruel
ing that Walls became more
resolved, especially after
talking to doctors, donors
and transplant recipients.
‘T wasn’t going to go
through all of this for noth
ing,” Walls says. “My mind
was pretty much made up
that if I was going to be a
complete match, then I was
going to do it.”
Informal confirmation
came several weeks ago.
Thinking the donation was
more of a done deal than it
was, Shawn Springs shared
the good news with a
Redskins beat writer, even
saying the transplant could
happen “any day now.”
The resulting six-para-
graph note on page five of
the Dec. 12 Washington Post
sports section got the story
out before either was ready
It hasn’t been aU bad,
thou^.
‘We’ve gotten some great
phone calls,” Walls says. ‘Tt
does allow you to see how
many people care about us,
how many people respect
Charlotte’s
ultimate source
for
HBCU sports.
Cljarlotte ^oiSt
Now comfortable sharing
thedr story, the guys are sit
ting on a sofa in Springs’ den.
A pair of framed No. 20
Cowboys ja^eys is on a wall
high above them and eight
game balls are on a ledge
across the room. Upstairs,
18-year-old Cameron Walls
and Ashley Springs are
hanging out.
■ The camaraderie among
the former teammates is evi
dent from the time Walls
lifts Springs finm his wheel
chair and threatens to drop
him onto , the sofa.
Throughout. a 11/2-hour
interview, there are argu
ments over who had various
ideas first (score it 1-1) and
several instances of finishing
each other’s sentences.
More often, though, they
build on what the other is
saying, like on the topic of
the greater good their story
win serve.
“What we want to parlay
fix)m this is the abOity for
more people to donate,”
Springs says. “That’s the
key”
‘When something happens
with athletes, its always
brings the most recognition
to a certain issue,” adds
Walls.
• Sitting nearby, Shelah
Zmigrosky loves what she’s
hearing. As president of
Kidney Tfexas Inc., she
imdei^ands how many peo
ple can baiefit from spread- -
ing their story The organiza
tion already got a $382,000
boost this year through an
event at which Springs and
Dorsett served as honorary
co-chairs.
Zmigrosky is hoping people
who become inspired to get
tested for diabetes and to fol
low Walls’ lead and become
donors. As both men note,
blacks especially need to
know the importance of dia
betes testing and organ
donation.
Of the 69,256 people await
ing kidney transplants in the
U.S., -24,100 are black, more
than double the next ethnic
group, according to the
Southwest Transplant
Alliance The crux of the
problem is that diabetes
afflicts blacks at a hi^er
rate than whites, yet there
are fewer -minority donors.
Demand for organs far out-
wei^s the supply, which is
why living donations are so
important. After aU, taking
Springs off the waiting list
win move someone else up.
About 4,000 people in need
of a kidney die each year
before their name is called.
‘We need to get this right,”
Springs sa}^. “They’ve got it
down so well, it’s like going
to Quick Lube and getting
an oil change.”
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