Tom Brady helps Big Ten kickoff nationwide blood drive

ROSEMONT, Ill. —  The Big Ten is out for blood.

The collegiate athletic conference and Chicago-based global healthcare company Abbott want to tackle a major public health crisis – a critically low blood supply.

Team mascots lined up Thursday afternoon at Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont to kick off a nationwide, competition-style blood drive. The campaign is designed to address what health experts are calling a generational shortage.

Blood is often essential for surgeries, traumatic injuries and cancer treatments.

According to the American Red Cross, this summer’s heatwave sparked the latest shortage. Excessively hot temperatures led to a drop in donations, and the national inventory plummeted by more than 25% in just one month.

Big Ten alum Tom Brady, who attended the University of Michigan, was on hand to encourage participation among students, alumni, and fans across all 18 schools in the conference. The university with the most blood donations will receive one million dollars courtesy of Abbott. The winner will be announced at the Big Ten championship game on December 7.

Brady says he’s honored to help lead the charge. He’s been donating blood since high school.

“I want to continue to encourage all the young people to make this part of their giving back in school,” he said. “I’m excited to see all the schools step up. I want to see them make as a group of individuals at a school that can get back to very, very big cause that we’re all in need of.”

“This is a critical, critical need as the U.S. is currently experiencing one of the worst blood shortages in a generation,” Abbott CEO and chairman Robert Ford said. “Some centers that we work with have less than two days worth of blood on hand, making their supplies critically low. Transfusions from donated blood save lives. And with blood having a shelf life of just 42 days the need for donations is constant, so our goal then is to help rebuild the nation’s blood supply.”

According to America’s blood centers, an advocacy group that tracks inventory in the U.S. and parts of Canada, 11 of the 59 community blood centers in North America have a one-day supply or less.

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