This effort, formally known as the Robert Corrales Honorarium, is being organized with the full support of the Pepperdine Baseball team and the National Marrow Donor Program.

Representatives from the National Marrow Donor Program will begin collecting marrow registries on Wednesday, March 25, at both Firestone Fieldhouse (Room 125) and Eddy D. Field Stadium, and again on April 15, 17 and 18.

The complete schedule of drive dates, locations and times is listed below.

Donors should expect an easy registration process that will take approximately 10 minutes. This requires completion of a form and self-performed mouth swab.

For those interested in volunteering to assist with the drive, there will be a volunteer training session in the Jones Trophy Room of Heritage Hall at 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 12.

For further information on the event, or to volunteer please contact Heather Collart with Pepperdine Athletics at (310) 506-6483. For more information on the National Marrow Donor Program, contact Shelley Baker at (714) 296-8479.

L.A. County Sheriff deputy Robert Corrales began suffering from leukemia early last year and has been searching for a match from a bone marrow donor since being diagnosed. It’s been a challenge for Corrales to find a donor with similar genetic traits since he is of Chinese-Mexican ancestry.

According to an article written by Alex Garcia for the San Fernando Valley Sun, “The tissue type is very complicated and in Corrales’ case it needs to match his Chinese ancestry. As the population of multi racial people grows the need for donors of every combination of racial background is needed for the National Bone Marrow registry ... Although twice removed from his Chinese ancestry, it’s still very hard to find someone with the same Chinese-Mexican traits to make them a compatible bone marrow match.”

Corrales has undergone two chemotherapy sessions since late February. The treatment involves sessions five days a week for one hour, and then rest for the next 28 days. The chemotherapy is meant not to cure the cancer, but put it in remission. In total, he has spent six out of the last nine months in the hospital undergoing treatment, making it impossible to return to work.

He is expected to leave the hospital in about a week following his current round of chemotherapy.

Corrales played baseball at Pepperdine as an infielder during the 1975 season and hit .311 with two home runs and 19 RBI for a team that finished 37-13 and 14-2 in the WCAC.

Corrales transferred to Pepperdine from the College of the Canyons where he hit six home runs, six doubles and drove in 35 runs with a .348 batting average. He was voted to the all-city team in 1970 while playing for Brawley (Calif.) High School.

"Robert was the ultimate teammate," said former Wave and Oakland Athletic Rob Picciolo. "He added so much to our group because he cared more about the team than his own stats. Robert was a tough and knowledgeable competitor who ran hard and was great at breaking up double plays." 

In addition to Picciolo, Corrales’ teammates from his one season at Pepperdine included future major leaguers Mike Scott and Mark Lee, and Steve Smith, who served as the third-base coach for the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Smith has been friends with Corrales since both played together at College of the Canyons; however, he didn’t find out about his teammate’s condition until coming back to Pepperdine for his daughter’s graduation. Picciolo's two sons also are Pepperdine grads.

“Robert’s not a guy who’s looking for pity, so I didn’t know how much he had gone through until I visited him last year at the hospital at UCLA,” Smith said. “And even though we hadn’t talked in more than a year or two, we were still close and it’s always going to stay that way."

Smith describes Corrales as a great family man and husband; an easy-going guy who’s more concerned with how his friends are doing even though he’s the one who is sick. It was Corrales’ positive approach and attitude toward his problems that allowed Smith to put things in perspective after he was let go by the Philadelphia following the World Series.

“I was really upset at the Phillies, but now I think ‘so what,’” Smith said. “Just being around him and seeing how he’s dealing with this situation has made me stop and open my eyes to what’s most important.”

While Smith absolutely wants to find a donor for his friend, he also wants to help expand the donor database. Even though someone might not be a match today for Corrales, they might be a match for future loved one or stranger in the future.

Piccolo echoed Smith's sentiments.

"I pray every day for Robert to pull though ... I think about him and his wife and family all the time" he said. "I've called him a few times since I found out and he sounded good each time he answered, so I'm hoping we can find a donor match through this effort. And if not him, then maybe someone else can be helped."  

NATIONAL MARROW DONOR PROGRAM

The National Marrow Donor Program works to connect patients and unrelated donors for life saving marrow/stem cell transplants. 10,000 patients a year are diagnosed with life threatening diseases that will require a life saving marrow/stem cell transplant from someone of their similar heritage. All it takes to register is being between the ages of 18 to 60 years of age and in fairly good health, filling out a consent form, a swab of your cheek and being committed to moving forward with the donation if the donor comes up as a match. Tissue typing is a very expensive test. The program has funding from the Federal Government to cover all college students. Typically the fee is $52.00.