ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Paul Worrilow pulled on his University of Delaware football jersey and wanted to compete. Like the rest of his teammates, he tried to put up as many numbers as possible. But this had nothing to do with football. This was far more important. This was about lives, about helping those who had no other options.

The Blue Hens football team had gathered in the Trabant University Center trying to sign people up for the “Be The Match” bone marrow donation registry -- a teamwide community service project started by their coach, K.C. Keeler. They went from table to table, explaining the process even though none of them had gone through it. They went through an educational course, saw how simple joining the registry was and tried to sign up as many people as possible.

That first year, Keeler and his daughter were the first two people to undergo the testing process when the football program got involved. It consisted of paperwork and the swabbing of the inside of the cheek for cells, which took about 15 minutes. By the second year, Worrilow, now a linebacker for the Detroit Lions, had his own story to tell.

Worrilow understood the odds. Around 16 million members are in the “Be The Match” registry, and about 1 in every 430 potential donors in the United States ends up both being a match and donating to a patient. It was far from guaranteed when he had his cheek swabbed as part of Delaware’s first “Be The Match” drive in 2011 that he would become a donor.

Then, a few months later, came the call. If he was still willing, he needed to take a physical to make sure he was the ideal donor for a 23-year-old woman with leukemia. The donation would be anonymous.

Before he became an NFL player, linebacker Paul Worrilow donated bone marrow as part of the "Be The Match" campaign. Tim Warner/Getty Images

“He was very willing,” said Annie Landen, the specialist at “Be The Match” who worked with Worrilow. “He was excited, and I feel like he never wavered from that very first phone call that he was going to go forward and do this.”

Worrilow’s enthusiasm was refreshing for Landen. Mary Halet, the director of donor services at “Be The Match,” said about half the time they have a potential match, the possible donor ends up not working out because of personal reticence or because their medical situation has changed, altering their status.

Those calls to patients, Halet said, are the toughest -- when the excitement of a potential donor is brought down with a complication or change. Worrilow never considered this. He was committed. He was in.

“For the donor, it’s pretty easy. It’s mindless,” Worrilow said. “It’s not painful. It’s not taxing to you at all. It’s a thing that over the years, I try to stress when I talk about this. It’s so easy for the donor.

“It’s such a little cost to you, and it’s a no-brainer.”

'Life and death'

The Delaware football team became involved with “Be The Match” because of Keeler’s friendship with Villanova football coach Andy Talley, who embraced the issue and wanted to broaden the program. So he reached out to Keeler, who was immediately interested.

Keeler did this not knowing that months earlier, Worrilow had read a story about a Villanova athlete donating bone marrow. Worrilow thought it was a cool story. When Keeler spoke to his team about their new teamwide community service activity, Worrilow remembered the article. He knew he’d sign up as soon as he could.

Keeler left that decision to his individual players, with one caveat: If they signed up, they were committed to donating, even if it meant missing a football game.

“That’s what I told our kids,” said Keeler, now the head coach at Sam Houston State, where he runs another “Be The Match” drive. “There’s a chance you might get called when we’re playing a game. This is life and death. We’re not going to choose a football game over somebody’s life. So just be aware, if you do sign up, and I’m signing up, I’m doing it myself, if you do decide to sign up, just be aware if you get called during the season and you have to miss a game, you’re going to miss a game.”

It ended up not being an issue. Worrilow matched during the spring of 2011 and in many ways was the perfect donor. Halet said transplant centers prefer young men to any other donors because males typically have larger body mass than women -- meaning more stem cells are produced. Also, pregnancy is not a factor. Younger people also have a more robust immune system, part of the reason the registry cuts off donations at age 60.

There are other restrictions, too, including heart and lung health, prior cancer diagnoses and having suffered a series of concussions. Concussions are an issue because of the drug administered in injections to stimulate cells. Halet said there have been some clinical experiences of people with concussion histories suffering brain bleeds as a side effect of the drug.

“Be The Match,” Halet said, has not experienced that, but to be safe, they’ve taken added precautions.

Worrilow had none of these concerns.

'Nothing cooler'

When Worrilow received the call from Landen, it began a process that required multiple phone calls, visits to hospitals for injections and then donation. Every potential donor who reaches the stage Worrilow did has a liaison to help them through the process.

The initial conversation between the two gauged Worrilow’s interest in continuing with the process, followed by a questionnaire to make sure his health hadn’t changed and then an informational session so he could understand what he was going to have to do.

Next, Worrilow had to take a physical exam and set up his appointments for a series of five injections of Filgrastim leading up to his donation date. The injections of Filgrastim stimulated more growth in the blood stem cells, which would be filtered out during donation day.

During the process, Landen and Worrilow spoke between 15-20 times, including one call the day before the donation and one a couple of days after to make sure everything was going well. Landen, who is in Connecticut, had no connection to Worrilow before their initial conversation. Never met him. Still hasn’t. But occasionally, she’ll follow his career.

On donation day, there are two types of bone marrow donation: Liquid marrow donation, which requires needles to take liquid marrow out of the pelvis, and the more common peripheral-blood-stem-cell donation, which is the procedure used on Worrilow. On the day of the donation at Christiana Care in Delaware, Worrilow sat with needles coming out of both arms for a six-hour apheresis session. This sent blood out of one arm, through a machine that removed the stem cells, and then deposited his blood through another tube into his other arm. He was home the same day. Donors are expected to have some discomfort for a few days after and then be fine.

For those getting the stem cells or marrow, it could be life-saving, although statistics of survival rates depend on the age and health of the recipient and the type of disease they are fighting.

“I was surprised how it was for me, and then, just, I don’t know anything that happened after, but you just hope for the best,” Worrilow said. “The cool part that has stemmed from that is that I read somebody’s article that did it, and I’ve been able to be interviewed and do articles about it.

“I’ve met people who have read posts or articles about my situation and my donation and they went and joined. There’s nothing cooler than that for the donor.”

Inspiring others

When Worrilow played in Atlanta, he would occasionally speak about his experience. He put together a team for a 5K run to raise money for “Be The Match” and spoke at the race. Conversations about “Be The Match” would come up every couple of weeks. It could happen after a Falcons game in the parking lot or in an autograph line during training camp. The conversation would start about the Falcons.

It would then veer toward what he did as a college student, not knowing he’d make the NFL, just trying to help. The people he’d speak with would tell their stories, either about being a donor or how his experience got them to join the registry. That, Worrilow said, affected him. Whatever happened on the field goes away in those moments, because those conversations, “that’s a real thing.”

“Your ability to help, just somebody you don’t even know, that’s a cool aspect,” Worrilow said. “Each person has that within them, to help somebody with blood cancer. Just a lot of people don’t know that.”

That’s what Worrilow is trying to fix. Worrilow never had cancer. He said he hasn’t had anyone in his family suffer from the disease. He just did this because he wanted to help. And he still does -- now by promoting awareness. He’s still on the registry, too, in case he ends up with another match.

He said he’d do it again in a second.