New Heart, Full Life

Forty years ago, on July 7, 1986, Simon Keith received the heart of Jonathan Groves, a 17-year-old from Newport, Wales, who had collapsed playing soccer. Keith was 21, a University of Victoria soccer player whose Vikes career had been cut short by myocarditis, a virus that attacks the heart muscle.

"Never in a million years did I think I'd get 40 years," he says of the anniversary. "It's not a journey to do solo. It's definitely been a team effort."

Simon, LLD ’25, arrived on UVic campus in 1984 on a soccer scholarship. "It was good to play for the local university," he says “I was proud to be a Vike.” However, he only played two seasons before he got sick, and had to leave before completing his degree.

"Obviously it was a very challenging time for me and my family," he says. "Life is not a straight line. There are twists and turns along the way that you don't control. But I met some of my very best friends to this day at UVic."

Simon did not simply recover. After transferring to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, he returned to the pitch and three years later was drafted first overall into the Major Indoor Soccer League—the first person in the world to play a professional sport with a transplanted heart.

Following stints playing for the Victoria Vistas, Winnipeg Fury and Montreal Supra in the Canadian Soccer League, Simon went on to have a diverse and dynamic career, which has included executive roles in resort development and financial services. He has served as an entrepreneur building and selling companies in a range of industries all the while becoming a world-recognized expert in organ donation and transplantation. He has consulted in this area as well as acting as Chief Operating Officer of the Nevada Donor Network. He also had a family of his own.

In 2011, what started as a plan to help a family or two through the transplant journey evolved into the Simon Keith Foundation, which has raised and distributed more than $10 million across Canada and the U.S. The foundation focuses on helping young recipients through the transplant surgery and aftercare.

This is why the Simon Keith Foundation funds non-medical costs year after year rather than once, plus mentorship, psychological support and trips to the Transplant Games in their countries.

"Sports is a breeding ground for all the lessons that we need in life," says Simon. “I want these young recipients to see that we can be active, and we can be happy, and laugh, and joke, and compete.”

Simon explains that a transplant is not a cure but a condition you manage for life: daily immunosuppressants, an organ that will not last forever, four decades of appointments, tests, pacemakers and surgeries. The drugs that protect the heart also tax the kidneys, and by 2018 Simon was in end-stage heart and kidney failure.

In March 2019, at 53, after 32 years on his first donor heart—nearly triple the 12-year median—he received a second heart and a kidney in San Diego. The first time, his parents watched their son undergo this major surgery. "This time, it was the opposite. I had my children watch their dad go through this," he says.

In 2021, at the encouragement of the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame, he established an award for an incoming UVic athlete from the region, with a preference for those whose lives have been affected by organ donation.

The award has helped rowers, a soccer player and now a basketball player, Tyler Felt of Victoria.

“This award has reduced the financial burden of school along with providing an opportunity for me to play basketball at the highest level," Tyler wrote to Simon this year.

Simon seeks action from the government, too. "Canada needs a national registry for organ donors," he says. Each province and territory run their own, which he argues makes donations extremely challenging to coordinate country wide.

"I hope that someday, everyone can go to one place, click on one link and sign their donor card.”

His advocacy has been recognized across North America: He spoke at President Obama's Organ Summit at the White House in 2016 and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022 for his work on organ donation. And in June 2025, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, LLD, the highest honour the University of Victoria can bestow for distinguished achievement in scholarship, research, teaching, the creative arts and public service.

“Receiving a degree from UVic was definitely a box that was unticked. It's not something I had on my bingo card," he says.

 He also keeps in touch with his first donor's family.