GLEN ARBOR — Saving lives is Morgan Chalup’s job.
This one, however, she did on her own time.
The 38-year-old firefighter and EMT with the Glen Lake Fire Department donated stem cells that ended up saving the life of a University of Houston football coach.
Last month, the two met at a football game in Texas that was about a lot more that just football.
“It was very emotional,” said Houston special assistant to the head coach Donn Landholm. “And very enjoyable, very uplifting. I get a little choked up about it. I get emotional. She gave me life.”
Chalup was on the registry for four years before a patient was a match. She’d almost forgotten about it, and thought the first contact from NMDP — formerly the National Marrow Donor Program — was spam until looking closer at it.
“(I’m) blessed to have a donor like Morgan who stood up and answered the call and donated the stem cells,” Landholm said. “It’s going to add years to my life.”
MATCH GAME
Landholm is a 40-year college coaching veteran, with stops at Tulane, Tennessee Tech, Arizona State, Eastern Kentucky and Purdue prior to Houston.
He was the defensive coordinator at Purdue in 2009 when the Boilermakers defeated both Michigan and Ohio State in the same season for the first time since 1966.
Third-year Houston head coach Willie Fritz brought Landholm with him from Tulane, where Landholm had served as director of player development for eight seasons.
Landholm was diagnosed chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare type of blood cancer, in 2024. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation is the disease’s only known cure, and in about 20% of cases, the disease progresses to acute myeloid leukemia.
After chemotherapy injections at the nearby MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston — just 12 miles from his home — didn’t yield the desired results, in November 2024, Landholm was told he needed a stem cell transplant or he’d have at most three years to live.
Family members were tested, and none came out as 100% matches. NMDP registry data shows roughly 70-75% of patients who need a stem cell transplant do not find a full match within their immediate family.
But NMDP found a donor in its registry that matched — Chalup.
“There are very few people who have not had their life touched in some way by cancer. It’s really a great way to do something for someone that they can never repay you for.”
‘AMAZING EXPERIENCE’
Landholm spent 18 days in the hospital and 100 days in quarantine at home after the transplant. The procedure essentially re-starts a person’s immune system, giving them the immunity of an infant that needs to be rebuilt. Landholm even had to get some childhood vaccines again in his late 60s.
Now 69, he’s been in remission for almost 18 months. It’s going well enough that he only needs a routine doctor’s visit every six months.
Landholm was able to continue coaching during the whole ordeal, working from home, participating in team meetings remotely and reviewing practice and game tape online. Much of his position is administrative work — planning practices, evaluating player performance, grading referees and serving as Houston’s high school coach liaison in the recruiting hotbed of Texas.
NMDP and the Cougars football program brought Chalup and her family — daughters Katie and Emma and Morgan’s husband Paul — to Houston for a special weekend trip to meet Landholm, complete with a VIP game experience. The team provided jerseys with their individual names on them, tickets, sideline passes, gave the family a tour of the facilities and brought them on the field at halftime, where Landholm presented Morgan with a game ball.
They even ate with the team.
“I have never felt smaller in my life,” Chalup joked. “It was eye-opening for us small-town folks. It was an amazing experience.”
Prior to the Sept. 12 game, Morgan met Landholm for the first time in the football facility lobby. They talked about growing up in small towns — Landholm in Nebraska and Chalup in Empire — as cameras clicked and recorded video, bringing the moment to life as Chalup’s donation did for Landholm.
“It was not even a little weird, which is cool,” Chalup said. “He’s a genuine, good guy.”
Houston, which is now 4-1 with its only loss a narrow 28-26 setback against Texas Tech, defeated Southern 77-6 as the Chalup family visited.
Landholm’s wife Cindi and youngest daughter Kate attended.
“I’m feeling better than I have in two years,” Landholm said. “I’m running on the practice field.”
After a donation, NMDP guidelines don’t allow contact between the donor and the recipient for a year, to make sure everything is going well.
The first step in that is the recipient sending a generic boilerplate email to the donor with basic details like age, gender and country. No names. No occupations.
After that, if both ends are willing, NMDP puts them in contact via email at first. Almost like a pen pal, but where one already owes the other their life.
Chalup said she frequently texted with Donn’s wife Cindi and the two families quickly bonded.
“It was an experience unlike anything in my life,” Landholm said. “We are so glad we were able to do it.”
JOINING UP
Chalup made the donation in January of 2025.
“It’s not this daunting, scary procedure people think it is,” she said. “It’s like giving blood, but a lot longer. For something that can save someone’s life, it was a very easy thing to do.”
Her father-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia years ago and received a stem cell transplant. After that, her sister-in-law Sarah Lienard wanted to join the registry.
“She said, ‘We should sign up for that,’” Chalup said, “and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
They signed up online.
“It took two seconds,” Chalup said. “They send you a box in the mail. You swab your cheeks and you’re in the program.”
She was on the registry for four years before a patient was a match. She’d almost forgotten about it, and thought the first contact from NMDP was spam until looking closer at it.
Chalup was with her family at the time.
“Right then and there, with the kids in the car, I answered the questionnaire,” she said.
NMDP set up a health screening and a kit to get blood drawn to double check the match and ensure the donor is still in good health. The organization paid for Chalup to visit Versiti Blood Center of Michigan in Grand Rapids for the procedure, and she needed to move work schedules around a bit to have the day off.
A week before the procedure, Chalup received injections of filgrastim, a drug that increases white blood cell and stem cell count. Coworker Jared Ornelas gave her the shots.
The day after getting stem cells drawn, Chalup was back at work for ice rescue training.
“A lot of people think it’s bone marrow and it’s not,” Chalup said. “It’s actually pretty simple. I sat in a chair for seven hours and watched TV.”
The procedure itself is similar to a blood transfusion. An IV takes blood from one arm, runs it through a device that separates and removes stem cells, and puts the blood back in the other arm.
It takes seven- to eight hours to complete.
Firefighters like Chalup tend to shy away from publicity. The Glen Lake Fire Department, like others, has an in-house policy that anyone from the department who appears in the media — whether newspaper, TV or online — has to buy the rest of the department ice cream.
Chalup said giving exposure to this program is worth it. She joked Ornelas now has to pay for the sprinkles on top.
More Information To join the stem cell donor program, visit https://www.nmdp.org/get-involved/join-the-registry