Scot Pollard literally needed a big person with a big heart, or he would die.
At 6 feet, 11 inches, Pollard played in the NBA for 11 years on five different teams before retiring in 2008 and never had any heart issues that slowed him down.
But in February of last year, the Indiana resident and father of four was in a hospital room at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in end-stage heart failure due to a genetic heart condition. He needed a heart transplant to survive, but not just any heart — a big heart that would adequately support his gigantic frame.
Casey Angell of Lindale, Texas, was in another hospital room in February 2024, more than 500 miles away. Angell, a 45-year-old heavy-equipment operator with a wife and a 12-year-old son, had suffered from respiratory issues in recent years and now had pneumonia, recalled his sister, Megan Tyra. In the last hours of his life, his family agreed to organ donation.
Angell was approximately 6 feet, 3 inches tall and the same blood type as Pollard. A perfect match.
Neither Pollard nor Angell’s family could have known it at the time because such disclosures are not allowed, but Angell’s heart would be the one transplanted into Pollard on Feb. 16, 2024. Pollard’s was one of 174 heart transplants last year at the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, a world record.
Like many patients after a transplant, Pollard had a gnawing feeling. He wanted to know whose heart was beating in his body, and which family gave him the gift of life. At the Vanderbilt Transplant Center and elsewhere, there are strict guidelines around how this information can be obtained. Pollard could write a letter that VUMC would deliver to the organ procurement organization (OPO) that helped to facilitate his transplant and the OPO, in turn, would deliver to the organ donor’s family, still anonymous to Pollard at the time. If the organ donor’s family desired, they could write a letter back to Pollard.
They did, and one year after Pollard’s transplant, the two families’ lives are now entwined, both families working to spread the word about the importance of organ donation.
“We are willing to help in any way because it helps one person make the decision cause it’s a hard decision,” Tyra said. “And that’s all we care about is honoring who Casey was at his core.”
Pollard said, “Even if I happen to be having a bad day, which happens once in a while, no matter what, I’m having a great day now. Because I owe it to (Casey’s family) for making that decision to prolong my life to show them that I’m doing well for as long as I possibly can.”
Pollard said he’s an organ donor now, and so is his wife, Dawn. “That’s going to be my mission from now forward is educating people … about becoming a donor so it’s not a hard decision for their family to make.”
Genetic condition
For Pollard, this all seemed like a little bit of déjà vu. He said his dad, also “a giant,” died while waiting on the heart transplant list in 1990. Scot was 16 at the time.
The younger Pollard went on to play four years for the University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball team and joined the NBA in 1997. He said he saw the doctor regularly, mindful of his dad’s condition. Everything in his checkup in early 2021 was fine, he said. But later that year, he had to go to the emergency room “because I couldn’t get up and walk across the room,” he said. “I was passing out.”
His heart went into failure, and he suffered from frequent heart rhythm abnormalities that were treated with three separate ablations, procedures that destroy small parts of heart tissue to stop arrythmias. He had a defibrillator implanted. His local cardiologist said it was time to start talking about a heart transplant.
“I was terrified,” Pollard said. “It was always in the back of my head, you know, I was the last person in my family to see my dad alive.”
As the reality of transplant set in, Pollard started looking for that big heart, visiting several transplant centers in the hopes of getting on their transplant waitlists. The last he visited was Vanderbilt, where he underwent a day of pretransplant testing, “poking and prodding and (blood draws).”
The next day he woke up and told his wife, Dawn, he didn’t want to get out of bed. And he’s not the sort of person who doesn’t get out of bed, she said. He makes her coffee every morning. “He was just sweating,” she recalled. “His skin was gray. He was lethargic.”
She pushed him to get in a wheelchair and go to his first appointment at Vanderbilt with Ashish Shah, MD, chair of Cardiac Surgery. “You don’t look very good,” he recalls Shah saying. Shah holds the Alfred Blalock Directorship in Cardiac Surgery.
His second appointment was with cardiologist Jonathan Menachem, MD, associate professor of Medicine. “We are going to skip the treadmill test and instead admit you directly to the ICU,” Menachem recalls telling Pollard.
Menachem explained, “Based on his physical exam, it was pretty clear that Mr. Pollard was in cardiogenic shock and in need of emergent advanced heart failure therapies.”
Pollard was admitted to the intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Hospital on Feb. 6 to be stabilized until a donor heart offer became available.
His wife had a sense of clarity. “It was Vanderbilt,” she said. “We knew we were in the best care. We knew that this was the place he was going to get his heart.”
‘A helper’
Meanwhile in East Texas, an organ donor liaison asked Casey Angell’s wife, Pam, and sister, Megan Tyra, if they would consider organ donation.
“We never for a second doubted it or paused,” Tyra said. “The answer was simply ‘yes’ because, again, that’s who Casey was at his core.”
Tyra recalled her brother as mechanically minded and willing to lend a hand, whether he was jumping a car battery or changing brakes. He especially doted on his 12-year-old son, William, and loved to build model cars with him. “Casey was very much a helper and would help anyone, any time, any place,” Tyra said.
The medical team tested Angell’s heart and found it was in great shape.
Angell saved multiple lives that day. In addition to his heart, he donated his kidneys and corneas.
Waiting for a chance at life
Pollard waited in a hospital bed for nearly 10 days before learning that a suitable match had been found. He received his lifesaving transplant on Feb. 16, 2024. Upon waking, and having the breathing tube removed from his throat, Pollard (who said he likes to make up silly songs) sang to his wife, “I left my heart/ in San Fran-Nashville.”
The days that followed were a blur. “Pretty much all I remember is the nursing staff,” he said. “Every single one of them. There wasn’t one of them that didn’t come with a smile, and it was so nice.”
Pollard is out of the hospital now and generally feeling well. “He has his up and down days,” his wife, Dawn, said. “But they’re way better.”
He continues to speak out openly on social and other media about his transplant, encouraging people to become organ donors. Every Tuesday, he shares his “Transplant Tuesday Tidbit” on the social media site X, but that’s just the start. Dawn Pollard has created a new nonprofit organization called Pearls of Life to publicize organ donation, and Scot said he will be donating his time for speaking engagements across the country.
Angell’s family is grateful to now be part of Pollard’s life.
“We’re always going to care about Scot and hope he does well,” Tyra said. “We’re so appreciative of the fact that he wants us to be a part of this.
“We’re not fancy people,” Tyra continued. “We’re not special people. We’re just, you know, ordinary people doing ordinary life things. And it just happened that because of who (Casey) was, this extraordinary thing happened.”
