LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Just like every other kid on his swim team, Padraic McCole just wanted to be normal.

After receiving a kidney transplant in March 2001, as soon as his doctors gave the okay, McCole returned to swimming practice less than two months after the surgery.

The scars from the surgery have faded, but McCole's drive to show everyone that being a transplant recipient doesn't have to limit life activities and enjoyment.

Says McCole, 19. "My mom gave me a kidney to give me another chance to continue to strive forward.

This weekend McCole joins more than 1,000 other transplant recipients from three years up to over 80 in the 2006 U.S. Transplant Games in Louisville. The athletes will compete in twelve sports in total - from swimming to tennis to basketball.

Established in 1990, participation in the U.S. Transplant Games has more than tripled - thanks to advances in medicine that have helped change the perceived limitations of what transplant recipients can and can't do, said Ellie Schlam, spokesperson for the National Kidney Foundation, which organizes the Games.

"The point is to showcase the success of transplantation," Schlam said. "Everybody at the Games has defied death. It is incredible that they are in the pool or on the track at all."

For some of the attendees, simply making it to the games themselves is accomplishment enough. But for a growing number of transplant athletes like McCole, there's a little bit more at stake.

He wants to win, something he's gotten used to over the years. He was named the Outstanding Male Athlete at the 2004 U.S. Transplant Games, taking home four golds and two silvers. Last year, at the World Transplant Games in Ontario, Canada, he was the U.S. Team's co-captain and brought home another fistful of medals.

"I just try to win as much as I can," said McCole, who will help light the torch that begins the Games on Saturday night at Freedom Hall.

Pretty heady stuff for a kid who spent the first 13 years of his life dealing with chronic renal failure from the two undersized kidneys he was born with, a condition that led him to go deaf as an infant. He wears bilateral hearing aids when he's not in the pool.

While the transplant has allowed him to live the life of a normal teenager, McCole also understands that he is a different. He's lucky. The waiting time for a kidney transplant can range anywhere from 1-5 years depending your age, ethnicity and location according to the National Kidney Foundation.

McCole has made it a point to speak out about organ donation, speaking at charity events and working at information booths in an effort to educate people about the need to become organ donors.

"He really understands that he needs to give back to the people who have been so good at giving him support," said Moira McCole.

As much as the Games are a celebration of the transplant athletes, they are also a tribute to those who sacrificed. Organ donor families are a part of the opening ceremonies, and Schlam said often an athlete will win a medal then immediately give it to the donor family.

For the families like the McColes, the Games have opened their eyes to a community they never knew existed.

"All (Padraic's) life we went to the doctors, but we never met the same people in the waiting room that had the problems we had," said Moira McCole. "Going to these Games, you really build a whole other family and make this whole emotional and spiritual connection. There are so many people who had similar heartbreaks and similar triumphs, it is an enormous support and enormous help to you."

It's the kind of support that will help propel Padraic McCole to college next year. He'll attend Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., next year, where he will be on the swim team while working on his history degree.

There, he'll try to be just one of the guys on the team. Though probably the only one who has to take almost a dozen different medications twice a day to make sure his kidney keeps working properly.

Six years ago, that didn't seem possible. Now, for transplant recipients like McCole, the possibilities could be endless.

"I'm normal and I want to lead as normal a life as possible," he said. "I work just as hard as the kid next to me."