This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories and with a story about college friendships and how they can impact the rest of our lives.

Today, Ken Kendrick is best known as the principal owner of the Arizona Diamondback.

Here's Ken on one of the most impactful periods of his entire life.

The fraternity stories, I could go on for hours because it was the time when I met,

you know, some of the more important people in my life, both then, of course, but for forever.

Really the guy of all that was my most close colleague, roommate from that group, was Al Colley,

and he was from New Jersey and he spoke very rapidly, and his nickname was ACAC, like the machine gun.

Sadly for Al, he had a genetic disease inherited from his father, a deadly disease called amyloidosis,

and it is a gene that we all have in our body and when it acts improperly as it did in his body,

it attacks organs and kills the other organs

where that gene has attacked.

And he knew that he might get it

because his dad had died of it.

And he came to visit us once, never forget this. this yeah we're having our usual fun time here

visiting and he said well i need you know i need to visit with you privately and so he gets me

aside and he says well can he says i have to you, sadly, I've contracted my dad's disease.

I said, oh, man, that's really sad.

He says, yeah, he said, I think I only have about two years to live.

And I said, oh, ow, isn't there anything at all, you know, that can be done?

He said, well, not really. He said the only thing

that could be done would be organ transplant. And he said, I'm not doing that. And I said,

...