Villanova lineman to miss three games after bone marrow donation
Villanova will be without starting offensive guard Jake Prus for three games of the season, as the redshirt junior will be donating bone marrow on September 10.
Wildcats coach Andy Talley encourage all of the team’s freshman to sign up for the BeTheMatch.org bone marrow donation database each season, but Prus is just the fourth player since the team began the practice to be chosen as a donor, according to Philly.com. Last year, a volleyball player from the University of Rhode Island met the woman whose life she saved with a bone marrow transplant at Talley’s annual donor gala.
The lineman, who started all 13 games for Villanova last season, is also a pre-med student who hopes to one day become a general practice physician or an orthopedic surgeon.
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In addition to the eight-hour procedure, Prus will begin taking daily injections to prepare his body for the donation beginning this Sunday, and the 21-year-old admits to some initial nervousness about the process.
"There was a little apprehension when I first heard about it, because you think a bone-marrow donation is going to be kind of intense and take you out for a while physically and just drain you," Prus said. "I'm not too worried about it, because, from what I've been told, the post effects aren't painful."
The recipient’s identity is not revealed to Prus until a year after the donation, but he does know his cells will be going to a 65-year-old suffering from a blood disorder called myelodysplastic syndrome.
