Sibling Stepped Up To Keep Elliott In Game

By Bob Young

The Arizona Republic

SAN ANTONIO - When Noel Elliott got the telephone call last summer from his mother, Odie, he was sure she was just overreacting as mothers often do. He knew the call would come someday. But not now. Not this soon.

His brother, Sean, she said, needed a kidney transplant. The family had known for years that it would happen someday. That had been established in 1993 when a biopsy showed that Sean, then a forward playing for the Detroit Pistons, suffered from focal segmental glomerular sclerosis, a degenerative kidney disease.

The condition became news when the Houston Rockets called off a trade for Sean Elliott when they learned of the problem. And after he returned to the Spurs, where he had started his NBA career 10 years ago, Elliott had to agree to kidney clauses in his new contract.

But the smooth 6-foot-9 forward, who grew up in Tucson, starred at Cholla High and became an All-American at the University of Arizona, just had helped the Spurs win their first NBA championship. His three-point shot - the Memorial Day Miracle, they call it here - propelled the Spurs past Portland and into the Finals against the New York Knicks.

Noel and his wife, Kathy, were on their honeymoon when they saw that shot fall.

Now, it was Noel's brother who needed a miracle.

"We knew it was coming, but I thought it was way down the road," said Noel, who is 15 months older than Sean and still lives in Tucson. "Then I talked to Sean, and when he told me it was true, I just had this sinking feeling. It's kind of like hitting the bottom of the pit. I asked myself, "Is this the end?' A lot of negative things go through your mind."

Yet something told Noel that his brother was going to be just fine. And he knew why.

"I had this feeling the whole time that I was going to be a match," Noel said. "I told Sean as much. And I told him if I was, he had a kidney."

Odie got the news from Sean that the surgery was set. He forgot to mention who the donor would be.

"I asked Sean, 'Who is the match?' " she said. "When he told me it was Noel, I wasn't ready for that. Sean was so low-key about it. They made the decision together. Sean called Noel at work and told him."

"Any of us would have done it for the other," Sean said of Noel and their older brother, Bobby. "That's the way we are."

Noel had only one question: "When?" His brother told him it needed to be done as soon as possible.

Odie said one would have thought Sean had just asked his brother to toss him a pair of socks.

"That's just exactly how it was," she said. "It wasn't a big thing. Noel is such a mellow kind of guy. We're a family, and families pull together when these things happen."

The Elliott brothers have always pulled together.

"They were just like twins," Odie said. "They were like twins without physically looking alike. What one couldn't think of, the other one did. They were a handful."

Noel said the brothers often were asked if they were twins.

"We didn't look alike, but Sean was always my size if not an inch or two taller," he said. "Growing up, Sean and I were really close. We had our share of fights, but it was funny because if anybody ever tried to get involved, we'd both turn on them. We'd stick together."

Noel wasn't as gifted an athlete, although their childhood friend and now Sean's business advisor, Armando Rios, said Noel could hold his own.

"Hey, he could get up there and dunk," he said. "They've always been close. Their whole family is like that. I've seen Odie at Sports Park watching Noel play softball, and she cheers for Noel just as loud as she did for Sean in the NBA Finals. That's just how they are."

From Parade To Hospital

There are about 44,000 Americans awaiting kidney transplants at any given time. Of those, about two-thirds will have to depend on a kidney from an organ donor who has died.

Sean Elliott joined that group as soon as the NBA Finals ended. He went directly from a victory parade held for the Spurs to a hospital. Doctors feared he would need immediate dialysis. Had he not found a donor, he might have ended up permanently on dialysis to clean his blood.

"Even people in the spotlight need help now and then," Odie Elliott said, quietly.

The spotlight is about to grow even brighter - for recipient and donor. In fact, Sean Elliott had one warning for his brother before he agreed to the transplant. He told me, "Prepare yourself. It's going to be a circus," Noel said, laughing. "He told me it would get crazy."

And it did. Noel had to change his phone number, but reporters still track him down. A television tabloid did a story, so did the Los Angeles Times. People in Tucson recognize him now.

"I kind of chuckle," he said. "I just did something people do every day, but because of where Sean is in life, I get a rocket ship ride into public view."

That's because Sean Elliott is on the verge of something no pro athlete has ever done. He returned to practice with the Spurs Wednesday - his 32nd birthday - and soon hopes to be the first organ transplant patient to play in a major professional sport.

Only 5 1/2 months ago, a transplant team headed by Dr. Francis Wright, placed Noel's healthy kidney into Sean's lower right abdomen, tucking it under a layer of muscle, the top of the pelvic bone and away from flying elbows.

"I think the risk (of injury to the kidney) is pretty small, very small," Wright said. "It's in a well-protected position."

His old kidneys are in place, but barely functioning if at all.

There was one serious setback in December when Elliott was hospitalized with secondary pneumonia and flu symptoms, possibly the result of an immune system weakened by the effects of anti-rejection medications.

He is practicing without any protective pad over the area, but doctors have assured him - and the Spurs - that his new kidney is in no more danger than any other organ. He had to sign a waiver, freeing the club from liability should something related to the kidney happen.

Sean is confident.

"Same old Sean," said teammate Steve Kerr. "Nothing phases him. He's really not doing anything right now that he hasn't been doing for a couple of weeks. It's just that it's official now."

It isn't something he is doing blindly. Sean has read everything he can find on his situation. He knows everything about the medications he is on and what their side effects can be.

"He's probably an uncertified kidney specialist," Rios said.

But the Spurs are taking no chances. When Sean told Coach Gregg Popovich several weeks ago that he had been cleared to play, Popovich told him, "Oh no you're not."

"He tapped me on the shoulder sometime in mid-January and said, 'Pop, the doctors cleared me today.' I was shocked," Popovich said. "I had absolutely no idea that was coming.

"That's when I told him to go back to the doctors. The verbal clearances from the kidney doctors weren't good enough. I wanted it in writing. When people have to put things in writing and sign it, that's different. It's easy to say he's recovered well from his operation, he's doing very well.

"I want those doctors to tell me that he can compete with this new kidney at an NBA level, considering everything he's going to go through. So we met, our team physicians, our trainers, our strength coach and myself, and we let them know what this is going to be like on a day-to-day basis.

"Then they went back and did their research and wrote their letters. Our team doctors sat down with him and his agent, and gave him all the possibilities, the negative things that may happen, from the medications he's taking. After all that, we established a medical protocol to monitor him, then he was medically cleared."

During a workout Friday, Sean had to stop, cradle a basketball under his right elbow, press his fingertips against his throat, and count out the heartbeats while trainer Will Sevening calculated his pulse on a wristwatch.

It's a ritual Sean repeated several times, even during a shooting drill. His blood pressure also must be checked, and he will be closely guarded against dehydration.

"Now it's a basketball decision," Popovich said. "Everything is still there. His quickness, his jumping ability, his shooting. He's a helluva player. The question mark is, over a period of time, how will it effect him medically, and second, how long can he keep up that pace in a workout or game? We're not going to know that for two, three, four weeks.

"So during that time, between Sean and I, we'll have to make a decision whether this is a good idea to go forward or not; if he can help the team or not; if he's putting himself at risk in ways nobody anticipated. It's going to take that long to get a decent sample of practices and recovery periods to find out.

"I'm not going to put him in harms way."

For the most part, Sean has accepted the meticulous approach.

"He's put obstacles up, but they were necessary," Sean said of Popovich. "This is something that nobody has done before. Ever. There is no known protocol for it. There is a lot of data on kidney transplant patients, but there's no study on anybody like me."

Popovich still isn't totally sold. He thought Sean would need at least a year off before returning.

"I wanted to feel good personally that he took every single consideration into account," he said. "I feel he's done that.

"It's not going to make me any less nervous, or keep me from being a mother hen every day in practice, checking his heart rate, making sure he's drinking water and generally driving him crazy.

"But I do think we've exhausted this thing to the point where we're comfortable with him on the floor, and we don't sense there's any immediate danger to him. Now he's out there, and that final decision is up to him and his family."

Noel Extracts A Price

Sean has nothing to prove, really. He has a championship ring. He overcame two knee surgeries just to play at the level he did last season.

But Noel did ask his brother for one thing in return for that kidney, which is functioning just fine. He asked for two tickets to Sean's return game.

Of course, that means Sean would have to play that game. But there's more to it.

"It's really just another challenge," Sean said. "I'm not doing it to prove anything to anybody, other than to show what's possible for organ recipients. And I want to prove it to myself.

"Noel just assumed I was going to do it. He said from Day 1, 'When you play your first game back, I want to be there.' He was never somebody to say, 'Hey, I'm giving you this kidney so you better watch out - and be careful, retire or something.'"

Elliott is hopeful of returning soon - there has been speculation that it could be as soon as a Feb. 21 game against the Suns at the Alamodome - but even after the limited workout Saturday he admitted he's got a ways to go.

"That was probably easy for everybody else, but it was hard for me," he said. "I'm tired."

But he's determined to go forward, and to play this season.

"It would be hard for me to sit out the whole year and make it back," he said. "It would be a long time to be off the court. And I want to leave my options open, see if I want to just play this year and find out if it makes me want to play next year or if I want to have this be my last year."

Noel said he never doubted his brother would come back and play. He knows what Sean has gone through in the past while overcoming his knee injuries.

Few realize that during those recoveries, Sean could not utilize the anti-inflammatory medications common in treating knees in the NBA. Nor will he ever be able to again.

He had begun experiencing the kidney problems after using anti-inflammatories to treat a bad back early in his career, and that is among the possible causes for the condition that ultimately led to a transplant.

Copyright © 2000 Arizona Central, the online news and information service of The Arizona Republic.