COMMUNITY JOURNALISM: Transplant Games give athletes a second chance ... on and off playing field

Editor's note: Bill Klahn, 58, is a liver cancer survivor who received a life saving liver transplant in June of 2005. He is an avid swimmer, competing in a dozen swim events every year. He is a Masters state champion, Iowa Senior Olympics state champion and record holder, and a Transplant Games national and world champion. He lives in Cedar Rapids and is a personal trainer, private swim coach, fitness coach and lifeguard at the Cedar Rapids HGN YMCA and teaches swim lessons at North Dodge Athletic Club in Iowa City.

By Bill Klahn, Community contributor

I believe everyone deserves a second chance. I believe that the more than 100,000 people in the United States awaiting a life saving organ transplant, including more than 600 Iowans, deserve a second chance.

To showcase the need for more organ donors, and to show the world that organ transplantation is a success, myself and 20 other organ transplant recipients, plus four living donors, recently participated in The Transplant Games of America.

Joined by nearly 1,000 transplant athletes from around the country, we participated in a variety of sports, including swimming, track and field, basketball, volleyball, tennis, golf, cycling, bowling and a 5K run. We all came together to compete and to celebrate life, along with living donors and donor families.

The Transplant games are our Olympics.

Being an avid swimmer and coach, I regretted not being able to watch my swimming heroes battle it out in London. But I had my teammates and my events to concentrate on, honoring the ones who gave so much so that we could live.

Team Iowa was lead by our dedicated team managers, Kim and Nate Scadlock, whose 4-year-old son Beckham, received a heart transplant when he was only 16 days old. With a total of 25 athletes, 21 recipients - eight heart, seven kidney, five liver and one liver/kidney - and four living donors, Team Iowa amassed a total of 48 medals.

We won 30 golds, 13 silvers and five bronzes, placing in the top ten in the medal count of around 40 teams. Our youngest competitor, Beckham, won a gold in swimming and a silver in track. Our oldest competitor, Kelly Gay, who received a kidney transplant, won gold in swimming in the 200- and 500-yard free.

In the past we were limited to four individual events, so I usually just swam and competed on the volleyball and basketball teams. With a change in the rules, all 5-foor-7 of me decided to try the high jump. The thought of sailing over that bar backward seemed magical and I wanted to do it. So, at 58, with the help of Ryan Scheckel, track coach at Mount Mercy University, I learned to high jump - kind of.

I went on to win gold, thanks to Ryan, along with taking gold in the 200-yard individual medley, 500 free and the 50 and 100 breaststroke. We also placed second in volleyball in three hard fought games against Illinois, losing the third game, 15-12.

This year we had two basketball teams, and being a swimmer, I was naturally on the “B” team. Unfortunately, in our second game we drew the “A” team, got slaughtered and they went on to win the gold medal.

The competition was fun, yet tense at times, as we all wanted to honor our donors and their families.

Of course, we had already won.

We wanted to show that transplantation works and the gift of life is the most important gift one can give. We all got our second chance.

For more on organ donation or to become a donor, Go to www.iowadonorregistry.net