Sean Elliott
On August 16, 1999, Sean Elliott, an NBA All-Star and member of the San Antonio Spurs, received a life-saving kidney transplant at Methodist Hospital Specialty and Transplant. It was just a few months after Elliott led the Spurs to their first NBA championship and made a clutch three-pointer, dubbed the Memorial Day Miracle, in the Western Conference Finals against Portland.
Despite playing every game that season and reaching the pinnacle of his basketball career, Elliott had not felt well for years. Six years earlier, he’d be diagnosed with focal glomerulosclerosis, which can prevent the kidneys from functioning properly. Left untreated, it can cause fatigue, exhaustion, weight loss and nausea.
A transplant if often needed if the kidneys deteriorate, and by that championship season, Elliott was struggling to keep up with the rigors of professional basketball, which made that NBA Finals run all the more impressive.
Soon after the 1998-99 season, an ultrasound revealed that Elliott needed a kidney transplant, and his older brother, Noel, was a match. Reflecting on the event 25 years later, in 2024, Elliott is grateful.
“Having a transplant, for me, has meant everything because I’m here,” he says. “And I live a great quality of life because my brother stepped forward to become a donor for me and was unafraid. I call him a hero. I know sometimes people don’t like to be called heroes but he was my hero.”
Methodist Hospital Specialty and Transplant has a reputation as one of the premier living kidney programs in the U.S. and Elliott agrees.
“I was fortunate that Methodist Specialty and Transplant hospital was right here in San Antonio,” he says. “When I was going through my kidney disease the Spurs could have sent me to any hospital in the world to try to get better. But I didn’t have to go anywhere. I had to go 15 minutes down the street. That speaks volumes about the work that they have done here in the community and there’s no question to me that I went to the right place.”
Today, Elliott is a Methodist Healthcare System ambassador, encouraging patients to get a transplant and working to share his story and encourage people to become a living donor. He also maintains a healthy lifestyle with the help of his wife, Claudia.
“My wife and I have really embraced that role of healthy living and taking care of yourself so I’m just really proud of that role and that responsibility,” he says. “I’m just honored with the gift that my brother gave me and I try to be a role model for the people out there who are going through the same thing I did.”
And while he will always have the notoriety of being a San Antonio Spur, Elliott says his transplant story is what people want to hear about when they see him.
“There’s not an arena or a big event that I go to and somebody comes to me, and they say, ‘You know, I had a transplant, or I’m getting ready to have a transplant,’ and ‘I saw your story, and I feel like I can get through it,’ or ‘You’re an inspiration.’ And that makes me really proud and really happy because that was what I set out to do.”
To learn more about transplant services, visit SAHealth.com.