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Power breakfast delivers powerful message

Staff photo by JEFF HOUCK

The LifeLink Treasured Lives Breakfast at the Tampa Yacht Club on Nov. 10 featured quiche and sliced fruit.

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By JEFF HOUCK Jeff Houck

jhouck@tampatrib.com The Stew

Published: November 13, 2009

Updated: 11/13/2009 06:34 pm

It's 7:25 on Tuesday morning and I'm standing in front of the Tampa Yacht Club.

The hour and the location aren't all that remarkable. On most weekdays, I would already have been up about two hours. On this day, the fact I'm wearing a suit jacket is the truly remarkable fact. Oh, and that I'm about to eat breakfast at what looks to be the nicest BuddyFreddy's ever.

Beyond the four gallons of coffee my wife forces me to drink, I don't do breakfast during the week. Breakfast is a pleasant weekend pursuit, a flavorful reminder that I'm not at work. I have a hard enough time reading the paper on the weekends. That reminds me of work, too.

But this breakfast was special.

A month earlier, I'd been invited by Bill Minahan and his wife, Martha, to attend the Treasured Lives Breakfast put on by LifeLink, a non-profit organization that coordinates organ and tissue donations in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico.

I met the Minahans during a dinner at the Columbia Restaurant a few months ago. It isn't every day that you meet a high school football coaching legend and a former nun. They laughed genuinely at all of my bad jokes. An immediate bond formed.

When they say show up for breakfast, I follow orders.

Coach Minahan (when you spend 38 years on the sidelines for Jesuit High School, people tend to keep calling you that) was diagnosed in 1983 with kidney failure and received a transplant three years later. He responded by winning four gold medals in badminton at the U.S. Transplant Games.

Coach and Martha became advocates for the cause; he's a member of LifeLink's Legacy Fund board of directors. The board's duties include using breakfast as a crowbar to open a few wallets. LifeLink provided more than $1 million last year in donated medical care to patients in need.

After some polite chit-chat with Trib sportswriter Katherine Smith and Action 10 sports reporter Dave Wirth, breakfast is set before me: quiche with slices of cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple, and some fruit I do not recognize.

"What are those red things?" I ask Katherine.

"Strawberries."

"Ah, I thought they looked familiar," I say. These days if something isn't wrapped in bacon, I generally don't eat it.

At that moment, I look up and catch the gaze of Tribune columnist Steve Otto. I associate Steve with chili, so my brain hiccups as it attempts to process the image of him at this healthfest.

Lulled into comfort by the delicious breakfast, the message of the morning starts to take hold. LifeLink president Dennis Heinrichs spells out the organization's mission. He implores the group to have the difficult conversation with loved ones about bequeathing organs and tissue.

He introduces an inspirational video about Nicolas Green, a 7-year-old boy from California. In 1994, Nicolas was killed by highway robbers while vacationing in Italy with his family. His parents donated his organs and corneas, which went to seven Italians waiting for transplants.

As the film ends, Nicholas's father, Reg, stands up and tells how his beautiful son's death gave new life to others. Those touched by organ donations are asked to stand. The room is on its feet. The knot in my throat is not the quiche.

There's no clever ending for this column. Nothing I could say would be adequate in the context of so much meaning. Sacrifice has a way of making you speechless.

All I know is that sometimes, when you're not expecting it, a breakfast with champions is the best way to start the day.

Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324.

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