Transplant Games: Organ recipients organize Team New Mexico

Lung power was never a problem for young Mark Rodriguez.

Running from baseline to baseline in game after game as a member of Santa Fe’s first family of basketball, he excelled as a guard for the SFHS Demons while playing for his Hall of Fame father, Bobby Rodriguez.

Today, 38 years after he last wore that Demons uniform and two double lung transplant operations later, Rodriguez is spearheading an initiative to form a New Mexico team for the 2026 Transplant Games of America. New Mexico hasn’t had a team since 2014.

The 2026 Games are scheduled for June 18-23 in Denver. When the time comes, Rodriguez probably won’t be playing basketball — but not because of his lungs. They’re fine.

“I really don’t have basketball knees right now,” he said.

The legacy

Bobby Rodriguez coached boys basketball for decades at four northern New Mexico high schools. He’s a member of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor.

Seven of his nine children, including Mark, who finished his career at New Mexico Highlands University, went on to play college ball. Bobby Rodriguez taught lessons, beyond the game of basketball, that his progeny never forgot.

After college, Mark worked for years as a stonemason. Over time, the silicon dust he breathed decimated his lungs.

Diagnosed with silicosis fibrosis, he underwent a double lung transplant in October 2011. His lungs, he said, had so calcified that doctors had to use a hammer and chisel to remove them.

He credits a friend and mentor, Jaime Muñoz; the never-quit ethic he learned from his dad; and his own athletic body for the rehab that had him playing basketball less than a year after the surgery at the 2012 Transplant Games in Grand Rapids, Michigan — the organization’s headquarters — and again at the 2014 Games in Houston.

Then, one morning in 2015, he recalled during an interview on Wednesday at New Mexico Donor Services, “I stood up too fast and got dizzy. I lost my vision, my hearing, and I passed out.

“I fell against the dresser and the handle hit me right in between the ribs, causing a pulmonary embolism the size of a nickel.”

Rodriguez underwent a second double lung transplant on Jan. 24,2016. In the darkest of days of the ordeal, he remembered having wanted to quit his Little League team as a kid because he didn’t like the coach.

“My dad told me, ‘You made a commitment. You don’t quit.’”

He’s not quitting now.

Norteños!

Lucy Reyes-Salazar needed a kidney transplant.

It was October 2021, and COVID-19, while no longer raging, was still menacing. It was a frightening time to undergo surgery.

To her comfort and good fortune, Reyes-Salazar’s husband, Gene Kelly Salazar, had been friends with Mark Rodriguez since first grade in Santa Fe.

“Mark mentored me when I was was on my transplant journey,” she said.

Then, in May of this year in Albuquerque, Reyes’ nephew, David Segura III, died, a victim of gun violence.

“Mark coached him in Little League baseball,” she said. “Mark was here for his honor walk and spoke at his funeral, and we kind of reconnected then. He told me, ‘Have you heard of the Transplant Games of America?”

No, she had not.

“We’re bringing them back,” Rodriguez said. “I’m bringing back Team New Mexico,” and you’re helping me.”

OK, Reyes-Salazar said. “I’m helping you.”

It was Reyes-Salazar who contacted the Journal regarding the Transplant Games, as part of her commitment to increasing awareness.

“She’s sharing things,” Rodriguez said, “and she’s getting the word out big time.

“This is what I’m good at,” she said.

She and Rodriguez have designed Team New Mexico T-shirts with a QR code on the back.

“The QR code goes to our main tree that has all of our social media,” Reyes-Salazar said. “Registerme.org is the very first one.”

Honoring Bill

Some three years ago, Bill Talavera died from a fall he took while on the job for the Albuquerque tree service he ran with his younger brother Daniel.

Bill Talavera’s donated organs saved the lives of three people, said Celina Espinoza, Director of External Affairs for the New Mexico Donor Services.

The endowment that Daniel Talavera established in his brother’s memory, she said, have helped save 12 more.

The Talavera foundation awaits nonprofit status. “But we’ve started an endowment, with funds available to help people that are going through the organ transplant process,” Talavera said. “If they have to go to Denver, or Arizona, for a extended amount of time and don’t have the funds, that’s where we come in and help them out.”

Giving, receiving

When Rodriguez and Reyes-Salazar approached her regarding the Transplant Games, Espinoza said, her reaction was beyond positive.

“We’re really excited,” she said. “You see the passion that they have in telling their stories, and they’ve all helped me in very different ways, in helping to promote donations.

“It’s nice that the Games are something that’s for them.”

Espinoza said there are approximately 400 people waiting for a transplant in New Mexico — a figure that likely is much larger, considering that only kidney transplants are done here. Other organs donated by New Mexicans are sent all over the country.

The Games

The Transplant Games offer competition in 20 events and activities. There’s basketball, swimming, volleyball, bowling, cycling, golf, track and field and a 5K run.

There are perspiration-free pursuits such as darts, cornhole, ballroom dancing, Ping-Pong and, yes, Texas Hold ‘Em poker.

With basketball likely off the table, Rodriguez is looking at bowling and darts. Talavera and Reyes-Salazar are non-committal at this point, content just to be going.

The Games encompass three divisions: recipients, living donors and donors’ family members.

Rodriguez won a gold medal and a silver medal, which he displayed at Donor Services, at his previous Transplant Games. But, he said, these Games are not about medals.

“It’s about giving somebody something that we’ve already been given,” he said. “Extra time to have an impact on the world, time with our families, time to show people that when things get tough, we have to be tougher.”

It is, said Luis Hernandez Jr., a Donor Services external affairs coordinator, all about giving back for Rodriguez, Talavera and Reyes-Salazar.

“It’s interesting that they’re not starting out with the Games themselves in mind,” Hernandez said. “They’re coming from a community standpoint.

“This is our community. This is who we are.”