BROCKINGTON PUSHES FOR ORGAN DONOR TAX BREAKS

(Madison, Wi.) One of the Green Bay Packers' all-time rushing leaders spent a few moments Monday urging Wisconsin lawmakers to help the state lead in another area: live organ donation.

John Brockington, the former running back who became the first National Football League player to exceed 1,000 yards rushing in each of his first three seasons, testified on a bill that would offer tax breaks to live organ donors. It would be the first law of its kind in the nation.

Testifying before a Senate committee via speaker phone from San Diego, Brockington said he received a life-saving kidney transplant in November 2001 from a longtime fan and friend, Diane Scott, who later became his wife.

The transplant followed several weeks of painful dialysis, a process that he said ruins a person's quality of life. "You can't be productive," said Brockington, the 1971 NFL Rookie of the Year who's now in the financial services business in San Diego. "Once someone gets a transplant, they're productive again."

Brockington played for the Packers from 1971-77. He had been the Packers' second-highest career rusher until this week, when Ahman Green surpassed him.

The legislation authored by Rep. Steve Wieckert, R-Appleton, already passed the Assembly 95-1 and is expected to clear the Senate. It would let donors deduct up to $10,000 of donation-related travel and lost wage expenses from their state income taxes. The bill covers transplants of kidneys and partial liver, pancreas, intestine, lung and bone marrow.

Brockington, 55, wasn't the only speaker with a sports background who testified Monday. Trey Schwab, assistant men's basketball coach at Marquette University who is on the waiting list for a lung transplant, said the law would help compensate living donors, who face physical pain and a lengthy recovery aside from travel costs, lost wages and other possible barriers to being a donor. "By passing this legislation, we have a chance to set the standard for the rest of the states to follow," said Schwab, who suffers from an incurable lung disease.

Joining him in testifying was Miss Wisconsin Tina Sauerhammer, a Green Bay native whose father suffered from an autoimmune disease and died last year at age 45 while waiting for a kidney transplant. Sauerhammer said her grandmother told her that her father wanted most of all to see Sauerhammer graduate from medical school, which she later did. "There's no reason at all my father shouldn't have been there," she said.

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