Baseball coach donates kidney to player

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter has donated a kidney to a freshman player who suffers from a disease that can lead to kidney failure.

Both Walter and outfielder Kevin Jordan were recovering today in an Atlanta hospital one day after the transplant was performed. Dr. Kenneth Newell, the lead surgeon on the team that removed Walter's kidney, said in a statement issued today by Wake Forest that he expects Walter and Jordan to recover fully.

The school says recovery time for both Walter and Jordan is expected to be several months. Walter said it will be two months before he is back to normal. Jordan's father Keith said his son could swing a bat again in 6-8 weeks, and he expects Kevin to enroll in summer school in June and prepare for the fall semester.

"Certainly, the best-case scenario is that Kevin and I just lead a normal life," Walter said. "For Kevin's sake, I think that's the first goal, that Kevin can just have a normal life. Forget the baseball part of it for now. If he gets back on the field, that's going to be the best story of all. That's when [the media] are going to be calling back for another press conference, because that's going to be the great story, when he makes it back to the playing field."