Before we celebrate the more ominous, seedy side of collegiate athletics with a Fulmer Cup update, let’s remind people that sometimes people do really, really extraordinary things for each other because of the connections they develop in the course of their work in athletics. Because unless donating a kidney is a mandated policy in the HR manual at Oregon State, this truly is an act of grace:

Oregon State offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf donated a kidney to offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh’s wife. Laurie Cavanaugh, 48, had living-donor kidney transplant surgery on Tuesday at Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University Hospital.

Cavanaugh has autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, an inherited condition usually dormant until the patient hits their forties of fifties. Almost all patients experience renal failure before they hit the age of sixty, however, and the morbidity rate is nothing to scoff at: before dialysis and transplants, most patients died within ten years of the onset of symptoms.

Mike Cavanaugh, Laurie’s husband, was understandably overwhelmed.

“When you work as closely as a coaching staff does, you develop some really deep and solid friendships — I guess you could say this is the ultimate in friendship,” said Mike Cavanaugh, who like Langsdorf is in his third season with the Beavers.

Langsdorf will likely have to seriously curtail any beer-drinking he might have been doing prior to surgery. That, sir, is friendship. ONE HUNDRED COCKTAILS of a non-alcoholic variety for you, Mr. Landgsdorf.


Cavanaugh and Langsdorf, post-op.