Owls reach out to Texas Children’s
Rice soccer hosts bone-marrow registration drive during season’s biggest game

BY JOHN SULLIVAN
Special to the Rice News

As if the season finale against the crosstown rival University of Houston Cougars wasn’t already important enough, some significant charity work by the Rice Owls soccer team has raised the stakes higher. Rice soccer has teamed with the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center to host a bone-marrow registration drive during its upcoming match against UH at 7 p.m. Oct. 30.

	RICE ATHLETICS
	Rice soccer has teamed with the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center to host a bone-marrow registration drive during its upcoming match against UH at 7 p.m. Oct. 30.

The registration drive seeks to benefit the young leukemia patients undergoing treatments at Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH), which is just a block away from the Owls’ home soccer field. It is being held in honor of Natalia Lopez, a TCH patient and friend of Rice soccer.

“I am proud of our girls and what they’re doing,” said Rice head soccer coach Chris Huston, now in her 10th season at the helm. “This is something that the girls have come up with on their own, all in a very short amount of time. They told us (the coaches) what they wanted to do, and we thought it was great but hard to do with the game on Friday. It was their existing relationship with the hospital and the different families that helped them put all this together.”

Members of the Owls’ soccer team have had firsthand experience with the young patients at Texas Children’s. Since 2007 Rice soccer players have made regular visits to TCH, interacting with the patients and their families in an attempt to spread good cheer and lift spirits.

Before the game, Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center representatives will set up a registration drive at the stadium, where center personnel will collect names of fans who want to volunteer as potential bone-marrow donors. Identifying a proper match for bone-marrow donors and their beneficiaries is a key part of the treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, often called ALL or children’s leukemia.

“We brought (the Owl players) to Rice because they were great students and great soccer players,” Huston said. “Now everyone can see that they are great people as well.”

— John Sullivan is assistant director of sports information for Rice Athletics.