JOHNSTOWN —
Johnstown High baseball coach Dee Dee Osborne knew about Tom Walter’s generosity long before the Trojans graduate made national news after he donated a kidney to one of his Wake Forest University baseball players last month.
But Walter went above and beyond the call once again in the eyes of his former Johnstown Junior League coach.
Walter had invited the Trojans baseball team to Wake Forest to play against high school teams in North Carolina this month. The plans had been made prior to Walter donating his kidney to Kevin Jordan on Feb. 7. Osborne would have understood had Walter said he wasn’t up to hosting a 24-man baseball team and coaching staff.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Osborne said. “After the transplant, Tommy called me and said, ‘When are you bringing those kids down here?’ I asked him if he was healthy enough, and he said to bring them down.
“Tommy would do anything for these kids.”
That’s not surprising considering the coach was willing to give one of his organs to save a person’s life.
Jordan, a former New York Yankees draft pick, initially became ill in January 2010. The ailment was believed to be the flu, but after Jordan lost 30 pounds during his senior season in high school, it was evident he was suffering from something more serious.
Eventually he and his family learned that his kidneys were functioning at only 15 percent to 20 percent of capacity because Jordan suffered from ANCA vasculitis, a type of autoimmune swelling caused by autoantibodies, which destroy the body’s natural ability to fight germs.
Jordan took about 35 pills per day to combat the disease, with limited success. His kidney function was down to 8 percent and he needed dialysis 18 to 20 hours a day by the time he enrolled at Wake Forest in August.
The young man needed a kidney transplant.
But one by one his family members were eliminated as possible matching donors.
Walter offered to be tested as a donor on Dec. 20. On Jan. 28, he learned he was a match.
The surgery, which took nearly 5½ hours to complete, was deemed a success, and both Walter and Jordan were on the road to recovery.
Walter returned to the baseball diamond soon after the operation as the Deacon Demons opened their season.
Soon, Walter will have guests from his hometown.
The coach is accustomed to working with players from Johnstown. Each summer he coordinates Osborne’s Showcase Baseball Camp at Roxbury Park.
Osborne and his players will hold a spaghetti dinner fundraiser from 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday at St. Patrick’s Church hall in Moxham. The dinner is being counted on to finance most of the trip, which begins on March 18.
“The Johnstown baseball boosters and the school board are really helping our cause,” Osborne said. “We’re in the bottom of the ninth and they’re doing their best to help us pull this off.”
The Trojans baseball team traditionally had traveled great distances for spring trips, playing games in San Diego three times; Orlando, Fla., and New Orleans, twice apiece; Pensacola, Fla., Fort Mill, S.C.; and Memphis, Tenn. Due to the finances necessary to make the trips, Johnstown hasn’t traveled since 2006.
“We had to raise $24,000 most of those years, so it was a great fundraising effort,” Osborne said. “We hope to pull it off again and visit Tommy at Wake Forest.”
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