Greg Gathers was once a breathtaking sack machine, but he is human. He sometimes asks why he is in the position he is in, once again suffering severe kidney failure. Gathers, a two-time first-team All-ACC defensive end for Georgia Tech in 2000-01, does have an answer.
“I just believe things happen in people’s lives for a reason,” he said. “You just try to have faith in God. You just try to find ways that you can exemplify him and just bring attention to him.”
Gathers, 34, undergoes 4 ½-hour dialysis treatments three times a week. Married with four children, he is a middle-school teacher and a high-school football coach in Gonzales, La., about 20 miles south of Baton Rouge and about 30 miles northwest of his hometown of Laplace.
“I’m feeling about as good as I can possibly be,” he said.
Gathers’ football career was ended by a failing kidney that first began to cause problems in the summer of 2002, prior to his senior season. After breaking the school sack record in his first three seasons (1999-2001), Gathers developed focal glomerulosclerosis, which can result in death if left untreated. After going on dialysis in 2004, he underwent a kidney transplant in 2005, with his mother Janice donating one of her kidneys to her son.
Since, he has been living in Louisiana, teaching and coaching high school football.
Gathers has lived with the reality that eventually the kidney that he received from his mother would eventually need to be itself replaced. Gathers said that a complication during the surgery – Janice began internal bleeding – delayed the transplant long enough that it damaged the kidney. Gather said that he was told that he would probably only be able to use it for a year to three years. That was 11 years ago.
Gathers said that the kidney had been functioning at around 20 percent for the past five years, a rate categorized as severe loss of kidney function, according to the National Kidney Foundation. But he said the number has fallen below 10 percent, which is kidney failure. In that stage of kidney disease, a transplant or dialysis becomes necessary to survive.
Gathers is hopeful to find a donor. He is in need of a donor with O-positive or O-negative blood type. Further tests are necessary to determine a match. Given the trauma of his last procedure, Gathers was at first hesitant to try for another transplant. He said his mother actually flatlined while on the operating table.
“I would never want someone to lose their life while trying to save mine,” he said. “My doctor reassured me that the technology is totally different than what it was 11 years ago and the process is way more safe.”
Over the summer, he has continued to help coach the team at East Ascension High, sometimes going from morning 7-on-7 sessions to afternoon dialysis treatments.
Former teammates and friends have come to Gathers' aid. Sean Gregory, who was two years ahead of Gathers and a captain of the 2001 team, started a GoFundMe page to raise money to help the Gathers family through this crisis. Started July 4, 150 people had donated a total of $15,255 as of Tuesday, three quarters of the way to the goal of $20,000. Several donors are former teammates and names recognizable to longtime Tech fans.
“It’s a cliché almost, but we really are brothers,” Gregory said. “We don’t speak to each other often – we’ve all grown up and are doing our own thing (but) whenever we do get together, it’s almost magical. Any time something like this happens or we hear about something, it doesn’t take much for us to pull together and support each other.”
Gathers is almost 20 years removed from his days at Bobby Dodd Stadium, when he was an instant starter as a first-year freshman in 1999 and made freshman All-America with seven sacks. He followed it in his sophomore season with 13 more to earn first-team All-ACC and then made second-team All-America as a junior with 10 sacks and 31 quarterback hurries. His school career sack record (31) stood until Jeremiah Attaochu broke it in 2013.
“He’s just a jovial personality,” Gregory said. “Everybody enjoyed being around him, never had an enemy. When you put that together with the ability that he had, he was a rare kind of guy.”
Gathers and his wife Danaya have felt the support of phone calls, thoughts and prayers. He is grateful for the financial help. He tries to keep faith.
“One thing that I learned just through playing the game of football is, when you get adversity, you just have to just keep on pushing through and see how things turn out,” he said, “just having a positive outlook on life.”
Those interested in making a financial contribution to the Gathers family can go to the GoFundMe page linked here. To learn more about kidney donation can visit the National Kidney Foundation website or contact the Gathers family – Greg and Danaya Gathers, 618 E. Great Haven St., Gonzales, LA 70737.
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