GATransplant

Brooking's Commitment to GTF Hits Close to Home

AJC Home Edition

Sunday , 07/18/2004

Section: Sports Letter: D Page: 1 Words: 706

Falcon reaches to stranger, finds tie

By MICHELLE HISKEY / Staff

Pro athletes often spend part of their offseason helping charitable causes they usually have a personal connection to.

When Atlanta Falcons linebacker Keith Brooking decided to help Georgians who need transplants, the decision wasn't personal until later.

And it hit him like a blindside tackle.

It arrived in the form of a little baby from his Coweta County backyard who would die without a new heart.

Brooking has done so much charity work that he's won NFL awards. He has spent his entire football career in Georgia and around needy kids.

Still, those who benefit from his celebrity are often strangers.

That's why the story of Luke Cowdell, Brooking said this week at a fundraiser for the Georgia Transplant Foundation, "is an unbelievable story."

Last fall, three days after the Falcons lost 36-0 to the Rams in what would be a dismal 5-11 season for Brooking, Jenny Cowdell of Moreland gave birth to her fifth child. The Cowdells named him Luke.

Jenny knew Brooking well from East Coweta High School. Back then, her best friend was Brooking's girlfriend.

On Oct. 16, Luke "didn't pink up immediately after birth," his dad Aaron recalled. Luke's breathing and oxygen level were low. Tests showed Luke had a rare heart disease.

He was sent to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. His parents were given a choice: Luke could undergo a heart transplant --- if a baby heart could be found in time. Or the Cowdells could let him die.

"I broke down into tears, faced with a decision that no parent should ever have to make," Aaron Cowdell said.

They chose surgery. Still, the odds weren't good: Luke might live 15 days without surgery; a donor heart usually takes 30 days.

An infant heart became available. Though the blood type did not match Luke's, surgeons performed the hospital's first-ever such surgery of mismatched hearts.

The successful operation brought not only joy, but unseen struggles.

Medical care following a transplant can cost $100,000 a year for life, said Georgia Transplant Foundation executive director David Bakelman. To pay for Luke's medicines, the Cowdells sold their truck and spent their Christmas money.

The foundation stepped in. Set up to help transplant patients and their families, it covered the Cowdells' copayments for Luke's medicines.

The foundation recruited Brooking without knowing his link to the Cowdells. Brooking signed on because GTF's mission fit with his desire to help children, who are among the more than 1,400 people in Georgia waiting for transplants.

From the time he was in middle school, Brooking, now 28, lived with foster children his mom took in. Having seen so many kids with so little love or resources, he signed up for a lot of related causes.

He volunteered for the Atlanta Community Food Bank and holiday meals for the hungry.

Last season he pledged $56 (corresponding to his jersey number) for every tackle --- totaling $11,872 for 212 tackles --- for the food bank. In the offseason, he formed the Keith Brooking Children's Foundation to help foster kids.

He's won the NFL's "Extra Effort" award for his work and the Falcons' "Man of the Year" honor.

But given the facelessness of those he helps, Brooking was stunned when, at a Georgia Transplant Foundation cocktail party in Duluth last month, the Cowdells rose to tell their story.

"Oh my gosh, I know her," Brooking recalled thinking. "I could not believe that was her. And listening to her compliments about how Georgia Transplant Foundation stepped in and funded her needs, I could not believe that. Her husband cried like a baby. This hit so close to home."

Needs become personal when they have a face to them. A face from home makes the need felt intimately.

Home in Coweta County, Brooking explains, is where his values lie, and one of those is humility.

"It humbles me real quick," he said of his hometown. "I know this [a pro football career] is only temporary. The things I have in this life, I try to enjoy every day and not take them for granted. I try to stay as humble as I can, and not forget the people who helped me get where I am."

People who now include a little baby with a new heart.

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