Auburn and LSU Families Share Bond Through Heart Transplant

LSU and Auburn are facing off Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Prior to kickoff, ESPN's College GameDay aired a moving feature about a bond between two families on either side of the SEC West rivalry.

Two days after Auburn fans Tucker and Amanda Boswell took their newborn son, Davis, home from the hospital, he contracted a virus. Doctors told them he needed a heart transplant to survive.

In Louisiana, LSU fans Jonathan and Holley Perry pictured their son, John Clarke, playing football one day. But tragedy struck when the six-month-old baby developed a high fever and was diagnosed with brain bleeding.

He died on Nov. 29, 2015. Before he passed away, his parents were asked to donate his organs.

"If we could help another family not have to go through what he had just gone through, if we can save another child's life," Holley Perry said in the feature. "Absolutely, we'll do whatever it takes."

After John's parents agreed to donate his heart, doctors performed the transplant on Davis. The procedure saved his life and formed a close connection between the Boswells and Perrys.

The families have vowed to meet every year when LSU and Auburn play each other. As a sign of the bond, Tucker Boswell made a shirt for Davis that reads, "My heart bleeds purple and gold."

"We just have this bond that is like no other," Amanda Boswell told Jack Smith of Auburn's official athletics website. "It's not something I can really explain or put into words. We will always have this bond with each other."

[ESPN.com]