Rod Carew Connection To Rancho Santa Margarita NFL Athelete

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — The heart of a one time Rancho Santa Margarita resident and former NFL Tight End from the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens is now powering Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew.

That donor, 29-year-old Konrad Reuland, an NFL tight end who hailed from Rancho Santa Margarita, died Dec. 12 of a brain aneurysm at UCLA Medical Center.

Carew received Reuland's heart and kidney a few days later at Cedars-Sinai. It was weeks later that the Carew and Reuland families realized the connection -- believed to be the first case of one pro athlete's organs being transplanted into another, and the further connection that the two had actually met once upon a time while Carew's children attended the same Rancho Santa Margarita Episcopal school that Reuland attended at age 11-years-old.

Carew was a hero of sorts to Reuland, who met the baseball gian when the future football player was a child. When he was 11 years old, Reuland even got to meet Carew when he was attending St. John's Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Carew's two children were attending the same school at the time that Reuland was enrolled there.

"All he talked about for the rest of that day was, 'I met Rod Carew!"' Reuland's mother, Mary, said earlier this month.

"My friend upstairs gave me another opportunity to continue his work, so that's why I was left behind," Carew, 71, said Tuesday at the gathering in Encino. "And I've got a great partner in Konrad. He gave me a strong heart. You know, every day the doctors came in they would say, `Boy he's roaring today."'

Carew, the Reuland family and the American Heart Association are hoping the publicity surrounding the donation will spur others to become donors. According to the AHA, heart and cardiovascular diseases cause more than 801,000 deaths annually. Yet heart transplants remain relatively rare, with about 2,800 such procedures performed in the United States in 2015, and there is still a long waiting list of people waiting for a donor.

Sitting next to Carew on Thursday in Encino, Mary Reuland said she is a woman of faith, and "I know one day I will see my baby boy again."

As for her son's still-beating heart, "It was just a wonderful thing to be able to hear a part of my son still here on Earth."

City News Service contributed to this report.

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