By Ed McGranahan.

Baseball season at Clemson doesn’t begin for another three months so pitcher Matthew Crownover can be excused if it’s the furthest thing from his mind.

Next Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving Day, his mother could receive a new kidney, a gift from the mother of Matthew’s girlfriend.

“It’s amazing to me that anybody would just give somebody an organ. It’s one thing to give a family member an organ. It’s another thing to give a friend or an acquaintance an organ,” Susan Crownover said. “I think you can see God’s hands in it.”

She has managed virtually her entire adult life with IgA nephropathy, or Berger’s disease, a condition that challenges a kidney’s ability to act as a filter. She married, raised two children, taught and coached two sports very well, all the while managing with a condition that became an intimate part of their lives.

A transplant became imperative more than a year ago when doctors determined her kidneys were functioning at less than 10 percent efficiency. She was forced to dial back at Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga after winning an eighth Tennessee softball championship last spring. She had relinquished her basketball duties the year before after nine seasons and two state championships.

Last spring, days after the state title game, she began daily use of a portable dialysis machine. It helped her get through Matthew’s season last spring and travel with the team during postseason.

While coaching a middle school team this fall she called her nurse and complained of extreme fatigue. The nurse chastised her good naturally. “Susan, I don’t think you understand this, but you are very sick. What you’re doing is not normal.

“If you slow down a little bit, it might be good.”

Susan Crownover laughed. “Slow” doesn’t appear on her dashboard.

Kelley Boyd of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Susan Crownover of Ringgold, Ga., met through their daughters. Madison Boyd began playing for Susan at Girls Prep as a middle school student and became Kelby Crownover’s softball teammate.

“We were friends of course with her being one of my parents to start with,” Susan Crownover said. “When she and Kelby played together they were good friends. She and Matthew became better friends I guess.”

With Kelby’s help, classmates Matthew and Madison began dating more than four years ago. Madison is a redshirt sophomore outfielder at East Tennessee State in Johnson City, Tenn. Kelby is now a freshman at Georgia College in Milledgeville.

“Kelby played in the summer for Madison’s dad, Tony, so we sat through a lot of games together in the summer time,” Susan said of her relationship with Kelley, “So we’ve had a lot of time together.”

The average wait for a kidney donor can range from four to 10 years. Dialysis might prolong her life nine years. Susan Crownover intends to return to the ball field next spring.

Her brother and sister are not matches so they offered to volunteer for the national pair donor program in which they would exchange a kidney for one from a compatible donor. Because the disease can go undetected for decades and there are indications it may be passed genetically, she did not want her children tested.

Prospects for a transplant match began to improve when she allowed her story to go public. A national clearinghouse called and asked her to register after it received a number of calls from people willing to help.

Kelley Boyd was unwilling to be interviewed for the story, but Susan said she became inspired while seeing Matthew pitch last spring and offered to be tested. Kelley was declared a blood match in early September, though further tests were required. Roughly three weeks ago doctors determined she was a perfect donor and surgery was scheduled.

They met Monday at Emory Hospital in Atlanta for final screening and were give green light.

“They put us both through the ringer,” Susan Crownover said, “I think it was easier for me to be approved than it was for my donor.

“It seems like it’s a never ending process.”

His parents have been managing with this situation their entire time together, so Matthew doesn’t know life without it. After a good sophomore season at Clemson he was drafted in the 21st round by the San Francisco Giants but decided to play another season because of the returning group of teammates and the chance to shave another couple semesters. He’ll probably need three to graduate.

“Whether I play one year of pro ball or five or whatever, I’m going to have to do something after I’m finished,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have a good year.”

The daily dialysis has taken a noticeable toll on his mom, he said, so this couldn’t have come at a better time. “It’ll be a pretty cool deal,” he said.

Susan said Matt and Kelby worry, “probably too much sometimes.”

There’s no denying it’s setting up to be a special holiday week for them all.

“There are Thanksgivings, and there are special Thanksgivings,” Susan Crownover said. “This may, hopefully, be the best one ever we’ve had.”