KINGSTON, R.I. - While football has a way of building brotherhood, Rhode Island teammates Evan Stewart and Brady Roark have a shared experience away from the gridiron that will bond them for life.

Within weeks of each other earlier this year, Stewart and Roark both saved the lives of complete strangers by way of blood stem cell donations. As such, both men will be recognized by Be The Match on Saturday as part of World Marrow Donor Day. That day, Rhode Island will be playing at Maine in CAA Football action.

Both men were matches through the Be The Match Registry. Each year, the Rhode Island football program conducts an on-campus registration drive through the Get in the Game program. The drive is one of the largest annual programs on behalf of Be The Match, which has more than nine million registrants in the United States.

In the 14 years Rhode Island's football team has run its registration drive, there have been 32 donors identified as matches. The 32nd donor - who registered back in 2018 - completed the process over the summer, months after Stewart and Roark.

Of the two current players, Roark, a redshirt junior tight end, was the first to learn he might be a match, receiving an email in October of 2022.   

"Honestly, it was a little bit of everything," Roark said of his emotions when he first learned he might be a match. "The moment was definitely surreal, but it was a little bit scary initially. You think about, 'What does this mean? What exactly is going to happen?' But the people I talked with explained that it was a painless procedure, and we were basically going to be doing a blood transfusion."

Roark had begun the process of getting tests and blood work done when he got a call from Stewart in January that he also may be a match. Entering their fourth year as teammates at URI, Roark and Stewart also were teammates at St. Joseph Regional during their high school days in New Jersey.

"This is definitely something that will always bring us together," said Stewart, an inside linebacker. "I've known Brady a long time. We went to the same high school, and then we both wound up here as well. This is something that we will always have that bond over."

The process took on added emotion for Stewart, who learned he was a match the same day that he found out his grandfather, George Stewart, had died.

"It was tough because I got the call that I was an exact match the same morning that my grandfather passed away," Stewart said. "But it was still definitely a fulfilling feeling. I never thought I was going to get picked, but once it happened, it was exciting."

As fate would have it, the day Stewart completed the marrow donation happened to be his grandfather's birthday.

"My grandfather was a big blood donor; it was something he believed in. When this opportunity came up, it felt like a full-circle moment. I really felt like he was with me throughout the whole process. I believe in that sort of thing."

Roark also was with Stewart during the donation process, albeit virtually.

"My process moved along a little faster than Brady's, so he was able to ask me questions along the way," Stewart said. "He actually Facetimed me while I was doing the procedure just to check in and see how I was doing and how it was all going."

"It definitely helped knowing Evan was going through it too," Roark said. "He was going through it, and it was a relief for me to be able to ask him questions and understand what was happening."

When people are deemed a match, they are given very little information about the recipients. In fact, donors must wait at least one year before they are able to have contact with their recipients, and even then, it is at both the recipient's and donor's discretion. Roark knows his recipient is a female, but due to patient confidentiality, more information cannot be shared.

"Obviously I've been praying that her body is accepting it," Roark said. "The crazy thing is you never know how long it will prolong the recipient's life. It may only be for a couple months, or it may be for many years. Honestly, every single day she gets is worth it."

Roark and Stewart are the latest in a long line of donors that have come from the football team's Get In the Game drive. Former offensive linemen and brothers Matt and John Greenhalgh, former long snapper Clay Crume, former volleyball player Caroline Casey, former women's rower Grace Rignanese and former assistant football coach Ryan Mattison are among the nearly two dozen matches URI's drive has produced through the years.

"When we had the drive, I registered more because it seemed like the right thing to do, and if I got picked, so be it," Stewart said. "The odds of being a match are super slim, but once I got that call that I was, I was just super excited to go through with it.

"The procedure itself really isn't that bad. It does not feel like you are doing something to save a life. But whoever I am donating to, they are somebody with a family. If doing this means they get more time with their family, that makes it worth it."

Roark, who credited the Be The Match staff members with helping him throughout the process, agreed with Stewart's assessment. A blood stem cell transplant is a non-surgical
procedure that resembles a plasma donation. Donors receive injections of a drug to increase
production of blood stem cells for five days leading up to their donation.

"People may be afraid of needles, and I understand that," Roark said. "You get your blood work once a month to make sure you are healthy throughout, and then the actual donation itself is super easy. I was done in three-and-a-half hours.

"To be able to say that you've saved somebody's life for such a small cost of a little bit of your time, that's an unbelievable thing."