Nate Robinson needed a kidney. Shane Cleveland knew he could help

'It was just one of those moments where there was great clarity on what I needed to do.'

Shane Cleveland is 44 years old. He lives in Bremerton with his wife, Kara, and their four daughters, aged 17 to 9. A graduate of Central Washington University, Shane studied journalism and once worked as a business reporter. Now, he handles IT and other digital matters for his wife’s family’s business in Silverdale. He loves boats and restored a 1965 Boston Whaler. He’s a UW football season-ticket holder.

Also, Shane said from his hospital room overlooking the Montlake Cut on Monday morning, he has about a seven-inch scar from an incision on his lower abdomen.

An amazing thing happened at the University of Washington Medical Center on Friday. Doctors took a kidney from Shane’s body — the preferred left kidney, to be precise — and transplanted it into Nate Robinson, the Washington Huskies legend whose struggle with kidney failure has been well documented.

The two had never met. Now, they’re bonded forever, “brothers from another mother,” as Nate wrote on social media.

All because he asked for help. All because Shane heard him.

Nate most thrilled fans as a hooper, as the little guy with the impossible vertical leap, as one of the biggest stars of UW’s basketball resurgence in the mid-2000s. After a three-year career filled with alley-oops and tip jams — and, you could argue, perhaps the most important 3-pointer in program history — Nate turned pro, became a first-round pick and spent 11 seasons in the NBA. At 5-foot-9, he’s still the only player to win the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest three times.

And yet, Shane says with a laugh, “I wish he’d kept playing football.” Shane has vivid memories of watching the 2002 Apple Cup with friends at The Tav, a popular bar in Ellensburg, when Nate, then a freshman cornerback, leapt to intercept a pass from Matt Kegel late in the fourth quarter of Washington’s upset victory.

It was Nate’s first and only season as a UW football player. Yet it established the connective tissue necessary to save his life.

Nate learned in 2006, during his rookie season with the New York Knicks, that his kidneys were not functioning properly and he would one day need a transplant. By 2021, Nate’s kidneys were failing. He began dialysis treatments three days per week, four hours per day. If he didn’t get a new kidney soon, Nate told the Daily Mail in April, “I know I’m not going to have long to live.”

Tank Johnson, the former UW defensive lineman, was Nate’s teammate during his lone season on the football team. When he learned of Nate’s struggle with kidney failure, ESPN reported last summer, Johnson began reaching out to him. After initial reticence, Nate finally had opened up about his need for a new kidney — he first announced his dilemma in October 2022 — and last spring gave his blessing for Johnson to make the ask of the UW community.

Johnson narrated a video that played on the big screen at UW’s spring game in May. It ended with information on how folks could register to see if they might be a match, including web links and a QR code.

Nate needed a donor with an A+ or O blood type.

Shane’s dad, Ron, graduated from UW in 1970 with a degree in aeronautical engineering and became a football season-ticket holder in 1973. The family had three seats. Shane’s siblings weren’t as into football, so Shane became his parents’ most frequent game companion.

He’s been to at least one home game every year since he was 7 or 8. These days, he attends nearly every one. Shane has taken over the tickets — Section 328, Row 23 — even if dad won’t let him pay for them. Now, his own daughters go with him. (In fact, after Shane and Kara began a tradition of alternating solo vacations for each of their kids, their oldest daughter, Ainslee, chose the 2022 Alamo Bowl for one of her trips.)

Shane attended the Pac-12 title game in 2016 and the national championship game last January.

“Even though I’m not an alum,” Shane said, “it’s just always been a big thing for me — something I’m passionate about, and everyone knows I am.”

So there he was at the spring game, seated on Husky Stadium’s south side with three of his daughters and his cousin’s family, as Johnson’s voice called out to him.

Shane found himself struck by how naturally the idea took hold. His blood type is A+. He lives a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps most crucially, his wife had donated a kidney in 2011, so he was familiar enough with the process. Without witnessing her experience, Shane said, he isn’t sure if he’d have volunteered to do it himself.

As it was, he couldn’t have been more certain.

“It was just one of those moments,” Shane said, “where there was great clarity on what I needed to do.”

He wasn’t alone. His understanding is that “thousands” responded to the call for a donor. He filled out a questionnaire, noting Kara’s history as a donor. He received a call back asking for access to his medical records, to ensure he’d undergone a physical exam in the past year. Later, he submitted a 24-hour urine test and was sent to a lab in Bremerton, where “they took a bunch of blood and did a million tests.”

Then there were Zoom calls with all manner of medical personnel — a social worker, a nutritionist, a psychologist, a donor advocate and more — and an all-day site visit at UWMC. They tested Shane’s vitals and drew more blood. There was a chest X-ray and a CT scan and an echocardiogram.

It all cleared. Around September, Shane found out he’d been fully approved as a match for Nate.

Just before Christmas, they told him: “Nate’s ready.”

Surgery was scheduled for Feb. 7.

Nate’s new cup, courtesy of one of Shane’s daughters.

The Clevelands have a small pottery studio at their home. Shane’s daughter Elise, 14, made a cup as a gift for Nate, whose family shared the waiting room with Kara and Shane’s parents on the day of the procedure. After she received the call that surgery had begun, Kara handed over the cup and asked Nate’s family if they could see that it got to him.

Sure, they said, but who are you?

Kara explained that Nate would soon have her husband’s kidney.

Shane tells this part through tears.

“They bombarded her,” he said. “They covered her with hugs.”

Updates came in for both Nate and Shane, their families supporting each other as they waited. Shane said he was in the operating room for six hours, and in surgery for about four.

When it was over, and he’d been wheeled out of the OR, Nate’s mother, Renee Busch, gave Shane a hug and told him that “I’m her son now, too.”

He hadn’t actually met Nate yet, though he’d crossed paths with him at a pre-op appointment and saw him in the same line to have blood drawn that morning. The day after surgery, once Shane felt good enough to walk again, he finally met the guy he’d watched in that Apple Cup some 22 years ago.

“We did it,” Shane told him.

Nate hasn’t stopped thanking him yet.

Also, the former NBA star told him: “Get ready, man. If you’ve got an Instagram account, send it to me.”

Shane isn’t a social-media guy. He’s on Twitter primarily to follow sports and news, and has Instagram and Facebook accounts so he could follow boat-related communities.

On Saturday, Nate posted a photo of the two of them side-by-side, wearing their hospital gowns and clutching their walkers, to his 2.5 million followers.

If Shane had any Instagram followers before Saturday, he wasn’t aware of them. Now, he has more than 33,000.

Stephon Marbury wrote: “God bless you my brother!”

Kevin Durant chimed in: “What a legend!!!”

Jamal Crawford called him a hero.

It’s no small procedure, but Shane hopes people understand “it’s a very doable thing.”

“I just want to make the kind of world that I want to live in,” Shane said. “I’d want somebody to do this for me, too, if I was in this position. And I think there’s a lot of people that would.”

Over the next three to six months, Shane’s remaining kidney should grow and provide up to 80 percent of pre-donation capacity. “That’s plenty, they say,” Shane said. “That’s more than I need.” The incision hurts some. He’ll take a week off work, and he isn’t supposed to lift anything heavy for about two months. Long term, he’ll need to maintain a healthy weight and drink plenty of water, and doctors have advised him against NSAIDs like Ibuprofen. Otherwise, he should return to living a normal life.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, a kidney from a living donor should last between 12 and 20 years, on average. Some recipients, though, can live with the same kidney for several decades; the longest recorded lifespan for a transplanted kidney is upwards of 50 years. Shane and Kara have become good friends with the recipient of Kara’s kidney, a prior acquaintance — in fact, they met for dinner with her and her husband days before Shane’s operation — and Shane says she’s still going strong.

The post-op recovery and treatment regimen will be far more involved for Nate than for any donor, obviously, but assuming no complications, Shane’s act of selflessness will have extended the life of one of UW’s most beloved sports figures.

Look at that photo again.

Two legends, no?

— Christian Caple, On Montlake