Football
Football Bearcats take first ever Gridiron Battle for Blood
By
May 12, 2009, 22:11

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- In the first annual Community Blood Center of the Ozarks Gridiron Battle for Blood, the SBU football Bearcats took home the traveling trophy with 98.1% participation by their team and coaches.

The event was an idea developed by SBU head coach Keith Allen and was a competition between five area universities (SBU, Missouri State, Evangel, Missouri S&T and Missouri Southern). Each team competed in dedicated blood drives or campus blood drives and were scored based on the percentage participation of their team and coaches.

CBCO's Lisa Medley expressed her appreciation to the area squads. "Great job to all the coaches and their teams! Their donations will help hundreds of patients in their communities in the coming days. Way to go!" Medley said the CBCO plans to continue the event next year.

Final numbers from the event:
Missouri State
Feb 9, 10, 11 (drive on campus)   60 players + 3 coaches on a roster of 65 = 96.9% participation

Evangel
April 13 (dedicated drive)   17 players + 2 coaches on a roster of 60 = 31% participation
   (total collections for dedicated drive 19 donors/17 units)

SBU
April 27 (dedicated drive)     49 players + 4 coaches on a roster of 54 = 98.1% participation
   (total collections for dedicated drive 78 donors/61 units)

Missouri S&T
April 28, 29, 30, May 1    44 players +1 coach on a roster of 74 = 60.8% participation

Missouri Southern
May 6 (dedicated drive)     36 players and coaches on a roster of 72 = 50% participation
 (total collections for dedicated drive 55 donors/47 units)

Every five minutes, someone in an area hospital receives blood provided by a CBCO donor. For more information on donating, call CBCO at 1-800-280-5337, or log on to www.cbco.org.

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