Nova's Talley wins community service award

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (July 7, 2008) -- Villanova University head football coach Andy Talley has been named the recipient of the Philadelphia Sports Congress Community Service Award. The award is presented to the individual, business or organization that has done the most to contribute to the quality of life in Philadelphia through sports. Talley receives the honor in recognition for his work with the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.

In addition to Talley's Community Service Award, the Philadelphia Sports Congress will also present the John Wanamker Athletic Award at a ceremony to be held on Wednesday, July 9 (noon) at The Wanamaker Building's Cryst Tea Room in Philadelphia. This year's winner of the Wanamker Award is Philadelphia Phillie shortstop Jimmy Rollins who led his team to the 2007
National League East Division championship and for his efforts was named the league's Most Valuable Player.

Talley's involvement in the national bone marrow campaign began in 1992 when he raised over $10,000 to determine the blood type of 200 individuals, with Villanova football student-athletes and his coaching staff serving as the foundation.

Now in his 16th year of association with the bone marrow donor program, Talley continues to hold testing drives to get people tested and typed into the national registry. Since 1992, Talley's efforts have resulted in over 3,300 potential donors being successfully tested and entered into the registry.

This year, Talley has taken his involvement to another level as he has
partnered with the Fox Chase Temple Bone Marrow Transplant program. Included
in this partnership is the First and Goal Program where Talley received
commitments from eight other football programs to hold a testing drive
around their spring football games. The eight programs including Temple,
University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, University of Massachusetts,
Northeastern University, University of New Hampshire, University of Maine
and Wagner College combined to test over 2,600 potential donors.

There are 20 million people worldwide who are registered as potential marrow
donors. Still, there are only about 250 matches found each year, making it a
1-in-80,000 chance that a registered donor will be a match.

In the fall of 2006, Villanova sophomore kicker Joe Marcoux was determined
to be a perfect bone marrow match. In December, 2006, Marcoux donated
blood-forming cells to a patient in need. Marcoux was the second Wildcat
player to be a donor match in Talley's 16-year involvement with the program.