This story appeared in the September 29 issue of Franklin Field Illustrated

Sam Philippi knew the answer as soon as he heard the question.
 
Here's a guy who's been to Mexico six times with his dad to build an entire house from scratch for a needy family. Here's a guy who goes to church every Sunday, who cared for his mom when she got breast cancer, who always puts the needs of others in front of himself, usually with a smile on his face.
 
"I trust him with anything I need," says Penn football teammate and one of his oldest friends, Nick Robinson. "His character, his faith — he's an all-around phenomenal human being. … When I'm whooping his tail in Madden, he's even nice then."
 
So when Philippi, then a sophomore safety with the Quakers, got a "random call on a random day" from a representative of the Be The Match organization a little more than a year ago, asking if he'd be willing to donate bone marrow to potentially save someone's life, he didn't even have to think about it.
 
"It was never something I thought I could say no to," Philippi says. "I felt it was a blessing to get chosen for it. I always say it's God's way of using me to help someone else's life."
 
While the operation may have been completely in character for Philippi, it was never something he expected or set out to do. He was added to the national bone marrow registry in the spring of his freshman year during a drive that the Penn football team has run for about the last 10 years (all it takes is getting your cheek swabbed for DNA).
 
Penn head coach Ray Priore estimates that each March, the team adds up to 300 new people to the database, helping to increase the odds that patients suffering from blood, bone marrow or immune system disorders can find a transplant match with potential donors.
 
"We want to impact lives," says Priore, who's followed in the footsteps of former Villanova head coach Andy Talley, who began his own bone marrow foundation in the 1980s. "The opportunity to change the course of someone's life is pretty special."
 
After getting the call that his tissue type matched a patient needing a life-saving transplant in early August, shortly before his sophomore season was set to begin, Philippi had to see a doctor, get some bloodwork done, and fill out health questionnaires. He then received a neupogen shot in his arm for five consecutive days leading up to the Dec. 6 surgery at Hahnemann University Hospital, which boosted his white blood cell counts but made him feel like he had the flu. And for the procedure itself — which lasted more than seven hours — an IV was hooked up to both of his arms, with blood going out one arm, through a machine to get the cells out, then back into the other arm.
 
"They told me all the blood in my body left me and came back in a total of five times during the procedure," he says. "That was a weird feeling. It kinda gives me chills."
 
Philippi, who passed the time during the procedure by binge-watching Narcos on his laptop and trying to sleep when he could, admitted he got a bit nervous after arriving at Hahnemann. But he found strength by looking over at the strong-willed person sitting in the corner of his hospital room — his mother. 
 
Be the Match flew Kathleen Philippi from their Southern California home to be there for her son during the procedure. Of course, she's always been there for him, even when she was diagnosed with stage 3B breast cancer around the time Philippi was just starting high school.
 
"My mom was the toughest lady in the world through that whole process," he says. "Looking back on it, I can't even remember a bad day she had."
 
Today, she's six years cancer free, and there's not a day goes by that Philippi isn't thankful for her recovery and her spirit. And it was another reason why donating bone marrow was especially meaningful for him.
 
"I thought about the person on the other side of the procedure having a family, having people that love him," he says. "If someone could have done that for my mom and I had to wait for someone to say yes or no, I'd be praying so hard they'd say yes."
 
Philippi's mother wasn't his only influence when making his life-saving decision. Another big one was Philippi's littlest teammate: 6-year-old cancer survivor and Penn football captain Vhito DeCapria.
 
The subject of a recent SportsCenter profile, Vhito was "adopted" by the Quakers through the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation shortly after surviving a rare and aggressive form of cancer  — and has been a mainstay of the program ever since Philippi arrived on campus.
 
"That's definitely something that was part of it," Philippi said. "Seeing the smile on that kid's face, it's impossible not to smile back. Talking to Vhito's parents after I did that, they were pretty moved by that too and they said how thankful they were that I was doing that."
 
As it turned out, the timing of the procedure worked out perfectly for Philippi, who was just a couple of weeks removed from playing a key role in helping the Quakers win a piece of their second straight Ivy League championship. And it came shortly before finals, which Philippi said he "did better than usual" in even though the recovery made him sleepy.
 
But even if it had to be during the season or during finals — the timing is based entirely on the transplant patient — Philippi still wouldn't have hesitated. Sure, it would have been tough to miss, say, Penn's epic home win over Harvard last season but, as the defensive back says, "In the grand scheme of things, a life's worth a lot more than a football game."
 
Priore reiterated that point, saying that he "absolutely" would be OK with any player missing part of the season to donate bone marrow.
 
"Just think about it," the coach said. "Let's put into context the game of football. It's a phenomenal game, it's intense to win. But you can save someone's life. That's pretty special."
 
Priore added that he believes anyone else on the team would "have been right there and done it in a New York second" if given the same opportunity as Philippi. And he hopes Penn's annual bone marrow drive continues to grow and more players get matched.
 
For his part, Philippi is trying to keep promoting and embracing Be The Match. The best part will be possibly meeting the transplant recipient, which the organization helps coordinate if both parties are willing, at least a year after the procedure.
 
Philippi definitely wants to do that, and hopefully strike up a meaningful relationship from there.
 
"All I know is he's a 31-year-old male who lives in the US," Philippi says. "Hopefully he's a cool dude. I know that he now has my peanut allergy, which is pretty funny. But I've lived a pretty good life with a peanut allergy, so hopefully he's living a pretty good life too."
 
Of equal importance is increasing awareness for Be The Match, which created his own link for people to join the marrow registry (join.bethematch.org/samphilippi). He's encouraged friends to sign up, both at Penn and back home, and hopes to perhaps start a similar drive at his high school, JSerra Catholic.
 
"I feel like every team should have something like this," Philippi says. "If we had every college football team promoting this, there would be a lot more lives saved. That's something we should all look forward to."