UNL wins Big Ten blood drive, receives $1 million for student/community health

LINCOLN — The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been awarded $1 million to advance student or community health after winning an inaugural blood drive competition among Big Ten Conference universities.

UNL and University of Nebraska officials accepted the monetary award and trophy during the Discover Big Ten Championship Game between the Oregon Ducks and the Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday night. 

Global health care company Abbott sponsored the “We Give Blood Drive” with the Big Ten.

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, president of the NU system, said that of the many reasons he is proud to be a Nebraskan, this award is one of them because of his medical background.

“As a cardiac surgeon, I have seen time and time again how important life-saving blood products can be, and as the president of the University of Nebraska, I’ve also seen firsthand the generosity of spirit and passion for helping others shared by so many of our students, faculty and staff,” Gold said in a statement. “It doesn’t hurt that Nebraskans also really like to win.”

The blood drive ran throughout the football season — Sept. 26 through Friday — and is set to return for fall 2025. There were nearly 20,000 donors nationwide, which will help save as many as 60,000 lives, according to competition data.

 More than half of the donors in the competition gave for the first time.

The rate of blood donors between the ages of 19 and 24 had dropped by nearly a third in recent years, according to a news release. The drive offered “the largest blood donation competition of our lifetime to fight the largest blood shortage in a generation.”

Nebraska had nearly 4,000 donors, which is estimated to help save almost 12,000 people. That’s almost twice as many donations as the next closest school, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which had just over 2,000 donors.

“Join me and athletes so we can save more lives together,” Husker football coach Matt Rhule said in a promotional video. “Let’s make Husker Nation the No. 1 blood donor in the Big Ten.”

NU highlighted that the donations will be used for a variety of medical reasons, including for premature babies, such as Genevieve Wright, now 9. She received multiple transfusions and constant blood products after she was born with a rare condition: severe hydrops fetalis, where large amounts of fluid build up in a baby’s tissues and organs.

Genevieve was estimated to have had a 2% chance of survival.

“Blood donation is imperative for so many, including my little girl who would not be here today without the generosity of countless Nebraskans who donated the blood that saved her life,” Genevieve’s mother, Shelly Wright, said in a statement “These donations gave Genevieve the chance to grow, thrive and have a full life — and there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not grateful for that.”