‘The Timing Was Incredible’: A New Kidney And A Super Bowl Trophy
In five months, Hugh Macdonald went from needing a kidney to holding the Lombardi Trophy with his son.
The father of Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald — whose team defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 — developed kidney disease after battling hypertension for years.
The diagnosis came as a surprise to the 76-year-old Army veteran, a 1971 graduate of West Point, after a nephrologist had assured him not to worry about his kidneys.
But in summer 2024 — three years after retiring from a successful civilian career in tech sales and consulting — Macdonald got the terrible news. The doctor told him to start preparing for dialysis and a kidney transplant.
It was “just like a two-by-four hit me in the side of the head,” said Macdonald, a longtime member of the Northlake Church of Christ in Tucker, Ga.
As he waited nearly another year for treatments to begin, Sabrina, Macdonald’s wife of 18 years, watched his health continue to decline.
“I just kept thinking, well, how sick does he have to be?” recalled Sabrina, a former investment manager and graduate of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.
As Hugh began searching for a kidney donor, a friend he’d met as an Army engineer officer, retired Army Col. Richard Donohue, told him about DOVE. The organization helps find donors for veterans in need of kidney transplants and facilitate the donation process.
At the same time, a neighbor and friend, Lynn Walker Gendusa, wrote about Hugh in a column that appeared in several Georgia news outlets.
The Seahawks also published a story about him on their website. In it, Hugh’s son, Mike, noted his father’s selflessness and humility.
“My dad is just such a steadying force,” Mike said. “Talk about high character, high integrity, a right and wrong way to go about things.”
Because of Hugh’s character, he made clear to Gendusa and the Seahawks — and The Christian Chronicle — that he wanted to use his connections to help his fellow veterans, not himself.
“There’s a bunch of guys out there, a bunch of ladies and guys who are veterans, who have a higher probability of kidney disease … that need donors,” he said.
Finding a match
By summer 2025, Hugh hadn’t gotten a match. However, the Macdonalds knew two Northlake church members were beginning the testing process.
One of them, Samantha Harris, a 40-year-old nurse, also served with Sabrina on the board of the Decatur Church of Christ Senior Housing nonprofit, which operates two affordable senior housing communities in the Atlanta area. The Northlake church was known as the Decatur Church of Christ before it moved to its current location.
Still, the Macdonalds tried not to get their hopes up. Several potential donors, including family members, had already been disqualified.
But Harris kept pushing through the “very intensive” process, as Sabrina described it.
“Every time something came back — like if a piece of the lab work wasn’t quite where it needed to be — she would say, ‘Well, you know, the lab must have made a mistake. We’ll do that one again,’” Sabrina recalled, her voice breaking with emotion.
At the end of September, Harris and Hugh were approved for the transplant surgery, which was quickly scheduled for a couple weeks later.
After the operation, Hugh’s improvement was stark and immediate, though for several months his travel was limited mostly to home and the transplant clinic.
“Incrementally from one week to the next, you could see he was feeling better and better,” Sabrina said. “And after about two months, he was just bursting with how well he felt compared to how he had felt before.”
Holding the Lombardi
The Macdonalds were anticipating Hugh’s three-month milestone in early January, when he got the all-clear to travel domestically.
The next day, the Macdonalds traveled out of state for a memorial service for Hugh’s brother-in-law, Bill Limbacher.
And just a week later, they flew to Seattle for the Seahawks’ first playoff game on Jan. 17. The Macdonalds hadn’t planned it that way — at the time of the surgery, they didn’t even know the team would make it to the playoffs in just Mike’s second year as head coach.
“The timing was incredible,” Hugh noted.
In a few more weeks, Hugh and Sabrina cheered on Mike and his Seahawks from a suite with the coach’s family at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., as Seattle conquered the Patriots 29-13. Hugh got to hold the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the Super Bowl champions’ award, with his son.
Hugh is “over the moon” with pride for Mike — even as a Massachusetts native who used to cheer for the Patriots.
“I mean, how blessed can you be?” Hugh remarked. “I’m just walking around with a smile on my face all the time. … It is such a juxtaposition against what it was like a year ago.”
Sabrina brags on her stepson, too, whom she describes as “ a replica of his father in all the best ways.”
Hugh is also proud of his son’s faith — and that of his two daughters: Kate Reinmiller, who leads sales for an AI company, and Maggie Newell, a stunt actor and director who’s worked on “The Last of Us.”
After his Super Bowl win, Mike told reporters, “I believe God called me to be a coach, and I listened to him. And I thank him.”
Thanking God — and ‘Sam’
Hugh said his own faith helped sustain him through his health crisis.
“It’s a foundation — you just rely on it,” he said. “You just fall back on your faith. You really do. And I always said (to God), ‘Hey, you know, whatever you have planned is OK with me.’”
Hugh’s brothers and sisters in Christ at Northlake were invaluable too, he emphasized.
“It’s been months and months and months of prayers and reaching out and asking how you’re doing and being very, very supportive — just incredible, incredible people,” he said.
And the Macdonalds have grown close to Hugh’s donor, Samantha Harris, and her husband, Ben.
“I’ll talk till I’m blue in my face about how sweet this lady is. … She’s got a heart of gold,” Hugh said.
He named his kidney “Sam” in her honor. “We talk about Sam every once in a while, how Sam’s doing,” Hugh added with a laugh.
Sabrina expressed her appreciation for Samantha, too.
“With God’s help, she saved my husband’s life,” Sabrina said. “She and her husband are part of our family now.”
Hugh and Sabrina both describe his experience as a miracle.
“The whole process of being able to keep people alive and then to transplant — I mean, that’s a miracle,” Hugh said. “So, you know, all of a sudden, your faith is strengthened, because these are miracles out here.”
Sabrina added, “You hear a lot of times words like ‘amazing’ and ‘miracle’ thrown around willy-nilly, and this has really been a miracle to witness up close and personal.”
To find out more about becoming a kidney donor, visit dovetransplant.org.
This article was originally published in The Christian Chronicle.
Calvin Cockrell is Managing Editor for The Christian Chronicle and serves as the young adult minister for the North Tuscaloosa Church of Christ in Alabama. Reach him at calvin@christianchronicle.org.