Boxing Team Meets World Champion

By Chris Glennon

It's not every day that you get the opportunity to take a picture with a world champion boxer and potentially save someone's life, but that's just what the Santa Clara boxing team had the chance to do earlier this week.

On Monday evening at Sunnyvale Boxing Gym, the team was able to meet six-time world champion boxer Robert Guerrero.

"Meeting Robert was truly amazing," said Santa Clara boxing team Associate Head Coach Pierre Moynier. "He was very gracious. I think our kids really appreciated it and it showed them that you can give back at any time in your life."

Guerrero was at his gym in Sunnyvale to shoot a video and to meet local boxers in the area. "Getting to meet the man behind an inspirational story has helped inspired us to look to give back," said team member Colin Autin.

Guerrero was also there to promote "Be the Match," a passionate cause that he, and now the boxing team at Santa Clara, share.

In the fall of 2007, Robert Guerrero's wife Casey Guerrero began to feel ill. She was first diagnosed with a simple viral infection, but it was later discovered that it was actually cancer. After her cancer came back from remission twice, doctors told the Guerrero family that chemotherapy was not working. She needed to have a bone marrow transplant.

Casey Guerrero then signed up for the National Marrow Donor Program and in January 2010 she found a match.

It has been over two years since her transplant and her cancer has not returned. Now she and Robert Guerrero spend time promoting "Be the Match," a nonprofit organization that aims to provide marrow transplants from unrelated volunteer donors to patients with leukemia and other deadly diseases.

"It was really cool to meet someone who has such an amazing story," said Austin. "He put his family ahead of his fights. He did what he thought was right."

Moynier also has ties to "Be the Match." He first became aware of it this summer when one of his co-worker's friends was going through a last-chance round of chemotherapy. This person had previously received a bone marrow transplant from "Be The Match" which worked for a little over a year.

"She was so grateful for the extra year she was able to spend with her very young children," said Moynier. "It's something words could not express."

Moynier, along with the help of Head Coach Joe Fierce, is insuring that the boxing team help make "Be the Match" as well-known as possible. "Many of the team's members (including Austin) have already joined," said Moynier. "If I had known it was as easy as it is, I would have done it a long time ago."

Fierce, whose family has also been touched by leukemia, said, "We're all fired up about this. We want to get this thing rolling, especially here on campus."

When you sign up online they send you four Q-tip swabs. All you have to do is swab the inside of your cheek and then send the swabs back. Chances are 450-1 that you will be a match. "Everyone wants to be a hero," Moynier said. "This is about as easy a way of becoming a hero there is. It's a great cause and you can help an entire family out." Moynier, who is a 1993 graduate of Santa Clara, said that his Jesuit education has made him passionate about this cause. "I was always told to be a man's brother," he said. "This is a way to live out our Jesuit teachings."

Contact Chris Glennon at cglennon@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.