LOS ANGELES — Kyle Owens, a former college basketball standout at UC Riverside who played on his senior night mere hours after receiving a cancer diagnosis in March, is in need of a bone marrow transplant.
And parts of the Southern California basketball community, in conjunction with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and the Owens family are organizing a donor drive to help.
“Obviously I want to find a match for myself, but it’s important to just get more people to register who look like me for other people out there as well,” Owens told ESPN on Friday.
Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California, is hosting a drive Monday and UC Riverside is hosting one Wednesday, seeking volunteers between the ages of 18 and 40 to take cheek swab tests to determine their genetic type, be added to the NMDP registry and eventually be matched with a patient.
“It’s hard for African Americans to find the perfect match because the numbers are low in terms of the donor supply that’s on hand,” Keith Owens, Kyle’s father, told ESPN. “It’s an underrepresented part of the community.”
It has been a hellacious year for the 24-year-old Owens, who just seven months ago was coming off a double-double against Hawaii and heading into the final home game of UC Riverside’s season when he was called to the athletic trainer’s office for a Zoom meeting with an oncologist.
As a fifth-year forward, he had enjoyed a successful senior campaign with the Highlanders, averaging 8.8 points and 5.5 rebounds, starting 26 out of 31 games and even beating Bakersfield with a jump hook at the buzzer, a highlight that appeared on that night’s SportsCenter. But something felt off.
“We couldn’t figure out what it was,” Tonya Owens, Kyle’s mother, told ESPN. “We could tell he didn’t have the energy that he usually had. After every game we were like, what is it? What is it? I was like, ‘I’m sure you have Covid, I’m sure you have the flu.'”
Kyle avoided medical attention, wanting to be there for his teammates and push through whatever he was dealing with until he finally relented as the season neared its end.
The oncologist delivered a devastating diagnosis. Tests showed that Kyle had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of cancer in which the bone marrow produces too many white blood cells. Not to mention, he was found to have the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Owens’ world was spinning and the game against Cal State Fullerton was approaching, with his parents, friends and high school coach, Russell White, making their way to Riverside, 60 miles east of L.A.
“My trainer gave me the option of playing or if I just wanted to start the game for senior night or wanted to do pictures for senior night or she was like, ‘You don’t have to go at all if you don’t want,'” he told ESPN. “The type of person I am, I decided to just play the game as much as I could.”
Senior night is a rite of basketball player and often, for those not fortunate enough to play for a championship or go on to play professionally, one of the biggest games of their lives.
Owens, his family and the trainer shared the diagnosis with UC Riverside coach Mike Magpayo and the coaching staff, but chose to keep it from his teammates, not wanting to burden them with the news so they could stay focused on the home finale and the Big West Conference tournament ahead.
“I started the game and took the first four or five shots,” Owens said. “And then wasn’t able to go back in after only playing like four or five minutes just because my body was getting fevers quickly just from overheating and overworking.”
Magpayo called the first play of the game for the 6-8 Owens. He was fouled and made one of two free throws. He kept shooting, eventually making a jumper before being pulled. Owens watched from the bench as his team went on to win 84-74.
“That night I drove him straight to UCLA and he was admitted,” Tonya Owens said.
“It was kind of nice to even only play a couple minutes just to kind of take my mind off of it,” Kyle said. “I don’t know how I did it, and people to this day tell me that, ‘I don’t how you did that.’ But that’s just kind of who I am.”
Owens went through a month of chemotherapy, followed by three cycles of the immunotherapy BLINCYTO — still working on his business management graduate courses throughout.
“He ends up finishing his master’s in his UCLA hospital bed,” Tonya said. “And in between treatments he goes and walks and gets his diploma and everything.”
Things were looking up, until late September, while celebrating his younger brother’s 21st birthday in Las Vegas, he suffered a setback.
“I guess the blood looked good from what the doctor said, and everything was good,” Tonya said. “Until he started getting a back pain and then numbing in his toes and feet, and that rose up to his stomach, and by then we knew something was wrong.”
Owens had to rush back to UCLA once again. Scans found a tumor located in the mid-back region, near his spine.
“It was putting pressure on the spine, which caused the nerve damage to where I lost the feeling in my legs and stuff,” he said.
He has been in at a rehab facility in Century City ever since, undergoing radiation and steroid treatments and retraining the legs that used to launch him airborne for dunks to simply walk again.
“Now he’s looking at a bone-marrow transplant in his near future,” Keith said. “That is the best way for him to achieve long-term health through this whole ordeal. Just go ahead, flush everything he’s got and start again fresh.”
Keith, nicknamed “The Condor,” was a former UCLA Bruin and played for the Los Angeles Lakers for one season, in 1991-92. He was on the team when Magic Johnson retired the first time after contracting HIV. Keith saw his teammate go through that and go on to defy everyone’s expectations, and now he sees his son showing a similar resolve.
“He’s kind of a grinder by nature, so, when given a task to work at, that’s how he operates best,” Keith said. “So, his disposition’s been great fighting through it all.”
White, Kyle’s coach at Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino, California, now coaches at Cal Lutheran. He is spearheading the donor drive this week.
“It’s just my way of something I can provide,” White told ESPN. “I’ve got a team full of guys that are willing to help.”
White and Owens’ parents hope the drive catches on with other basketball teams in L.A. and the Mountain West Conference.
“Any help is great,” White told ESPN. “Let’s try to save this kid’s life, man.”
