Riders Field honors organ donor, urges more Frisco residents to register

A Frisco RoughRiders game at Riders Field turned into something far larger than a night at the ballpark on Wednesday, June 17, when the club and Southwest Transplant Alliance used Donate Life Night to honor Anthony Robert Wood, an 18-year-old donor whose organs helped save multiple lives after he died in a car accident. His mother, Valerie Rocha, threw out the ceremonial first pitch, while fans scanned codes at concourse tables to register as donors on the spot.

For Collin County families waiting on transplants, the stakes are immediate. Donate Life Texas says its registry is the only official donor registry in Texas, and the Texas Department of State Health Services says more than 8,500, or 85%, of the roughly 10,000 Texans awaiting a lifesaving transplant could be helped through living donation. Donate Life America says one deceased organ donor can save up to eight lives, restore sight to two people through cornea donation, and heal more than 75 lives through tissue donation.

Southwest Transplant Alliance said it was founded in 1974 to facilitate kidney retrieval for Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Today, the nonprofit says it is one of the largest federally designated organ procurement organizations in the country, serving 10 hospital transplant centers, more than 270 hospitals, 89 Texas counties and one Arkansas county across a population of about 10.5 million residents. STA says it has recovered more than 35,000 organs and saved or enhanced the lives of more than 100,000 people.

Wood’s story gave the night its emotional center. Obituary records list Anthony Robert Wood as born May 23, 2007, and say he died Dec. 1, 2025, in Dallas. A fundraising page says he was killed in the crash at age 18. At Riders Field, his family’s loss became a public reminder that organ donation is not an abstract cause, but a local decision that can reach patients, recipients and donor families across North Texas.

STA describes Donate Life Night as a gathering for donor families, recipients and supporters to celebrate the impact of organ, eye and tissue donation. In Frisco, that celebration also served a practical purpose: a familiar community space gave residents a direct path to register, and a single evening of awareness turned into a chance for more lives to be saved.