Higgins to Donate Kidney

Update: The transplant surgery has been pushed back to Friday afternoon. 

Coaches across the country tell their players that the friendships built on athletic teams will last a lifetime and that teammates will become just like siblings. Alfred State athletic director Kelly Higgins is lending a helping hand to one of his former teammates in a big way.

Higgins, a former football and baseball player at the University of South Dakota, has decided to help his former teammate, roommates, and best man in his wedding Doug Smith by giving him a kidney. Smith has battled diabetes since his school days. His struggle has included dialysis, the loss of his feet, and cardiovascular issues.

Smith, a 2001 inductee into the South Dakota Hall of Fame, earned all-NCC honors in football and baseball. Smith who had six career interceptions, earned all-NCC football honors as a sophomore in 1974, making him the first Coyote sophomore in 20 years to be named all-NCC. An all-NCC shortstop in baseball in 1976, Smith hit .435 in league play and .394 for the season. That season he was a second team all-district 5 NCAA pick as he re-wrote the Coyote record book, batting .394 for 31 games which is still third best in Coyote history. Smith still holds the school record for Slugging Percentage-Season at .797 in 1976.

Higgins was a two sport athlete at South Dakota with Smith. He was an all-NCC selection in 1975 and still holds the record for yards receiving in a season by a tight end (623 yards) and in a career (1,104). He later would serve as the athletic director for the Coyotes for five years. During his time as AD, Higgins inducted Smith into the Hall of Fame. 

Last spring, Higgins began looking into the possibility of being a donor for his teammate. After going through a battery of tests, it was determined that his tissue and blood were close enough of a match to move forward in the transplant process.

Many people might wonder why someone would make a gift this large. Higgins goes back to the golden rule. "It goes back to what my parents taught us, how they lived their lives, and what some wonderful people taught us in school. Follow the golden rule, and treat others as we’d like to be treated.  Help when we know we can."  

"Helping others is part of why I chose this profession. It has allowed me to work in and through sport to do what I can to help college student-athletes achieve their dreams of success in the classroom, in competition and in life without (hopefully) making as many of the same mistakes I made back in the day!"

"I hope it’s a reminder to all to think about how you too could make an impact in someone else’s life if the opportunity ever comes your way."

According to the National Kidney Foundation as of 4/22/15 there are currently 101,662 people in the United States awaiting transplants (www.kidney.org) . Over 3,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month and in 2014, 17,105 kidney transplants were performed. 

Timing for the actual transplant was up in the air until a few days ago and the window to perform the transplant is short. Higgins will travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN on Friday for final tests before the scheduled transplant on Monday (9/28). The recovery time for both Higgins and Smith is estimated at a week to ten days.

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