Olympic gold medalist joins Emporia State in promoting bone marrow donations

Earl Young, an Olympic gold medalist in track, recently partnered with students at Emporia State University to encourage people to make bone marrow donations to help U.S. citizens who have a malignancy attacking bone marrow, blood or lymph systems.

Every three minutes, a person in the U.S. receives a diagnosis with this health condition. This means that there are 480 new patients with this diagnosis every day.

By encouraging people to make donations or register as donors, Young and the students will increase the chances of these patients having access to bone marrow transplants that could save their lives.

In 1960, Young won a gold medal for running on the 4x400 meter relay in Rome. After completing the Olympics, Young established a career for himself in business. Unfortunately, in 2011, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He needed a bone marrow transplant, and his life was saved when a German woman registered to be a donor. Young uses his story to inspire other donors to save lives as well.

The partnership will host two days featuring registry events at the university. They look forward to a strong response and increased awareness on these two days, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1.

“We want to add 500 people to the ... registry,” Shayla Cotman, a senior accounting major from Wichita who also is a track and volleyball student-athlete, said.