At their Jan. 16 game against the Buffalo Sabres, the Dallas Stars shared a video with the crowd to highlight their employee Cody Strull’s selfless act of donating his bone marrow to save a Wisconsin man and to encourage others to get tested. At the game, 295 new potential donors registered. A few days earlier, Cody and the Dallas Stars supported a recent donor drive for Harrison Marcus, a local third grader, who is a member of the Dallas Stars Youth Hockey League, recently diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia). Without a matching donor in his family, Harrison is in need of an unrelated donor. A drive was held at Harrison’s school, Parish Episcopal School, on Jan. 12 and 1,100 new potential donors registered. A virtual drive has been set up for those who missed that donor drive and would like to sign up for Harrison and others.
Cody, who is the son of Keo Strull and Brian Strull of Dallas, graduated from Richardson High School, where he played baseball. He was a member of Rubin Kaplan AZA and attends Temple Shalom. He joined the DKMS registry at a ZBT Dad’s Weekend event during his sophomore year at the University of Texas, Austin. Two years later, he received a life-changing phone call that he was a 100% match with Max Stephenson, a Wisconsin resident who was battling chronic myeloid leukemia. In July 2018, Strull donated his stem cells, saving Stephenson’s life. The two met for the first time on the DKMS Awards Breakfast stage in November, where Stephenson thanked Strull for giving him a second chance at life so he could be around for his wife, four children and seven grandchildren.
“When I was called upon to donate, I viewed the whole experience as a boxing match — Max was the one in the ring fighting cancer, getting thrown down and making punches. I was just the guy in the corner, cheering him on, keeping him hydrated and helping him so he could stand back up and continue to put up a strong fight,” said Cody Strull. “I would do it a million times over again if I could.”
To view the Dallas Stars video featuring Cody, visit https://bit.ly/2U5gnza.
To register for the virtual bone marrow donor drive, or to help find a donor for Harrison Marcus and others, visit https://bit.ly/3aPIqse.