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In the early summer of 2009, Ken Diehl started feeling poorly. He had been diagnosed with hypertension and IgA nephropathy—a kidney disease—several years earlier, but had been leading a normal life. For some reason, though, the disease became aggressive.

“My kidneys were only functioning at about 7 or 8 percent,” Diehl says. “The doctors were amazed that I was even walking around.”

Dialysis was the next step, but what Diehl really needed was a new kidney. Eight people volunteered to donate a kidney for him right then and there—an experience he says was humbling.

“They only went to the trouble to test one person, though, and it was a dead-on, perfect match,” Diehl says. That person was his brother, Robert, who also attended ������Ƶ. Their love for ������Ƶ baseball had made the brothers closer the past few years, and the gift of a kidney was another step in that direction.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get away from thinking about it every day—after all, I have pills to remind me,” says Diehl. “But it has been a tremendous blessing to me.”

The Diehl brothers urge everyone to consider organ donation—a gift of life.