Team Tyler

Mark Thomas isn't sure what his neighbors think of his favorite activity with his twin sons, but few things stop him from propping the 2-year-old boys, Tyler and Markus Thomas, on his lap and letting them navigate his minivan through their Laurel neighborhood.

It was during one of these traditionally peaceful jaunts on Sept. 28 that Thomas' cell phone rang. It was the family's pediatrician, Dr. Cathy Parrish. She told Thomas to pull over.

A seemingly regular checkup earlier that day had produced news that would forever change the lives of Thomas and his wife of five years, Terrapin women's basketball coach Brenda Frese. Parrish explained that a blood test had confirmed her fear: Tyler had leukemia.

"I didn't have a concern in my mind [before that call]," Thomas recalled.

The next four months blurred the line between competition and compassion for Thomas, Frese and their family. As Frese's life at home became increasingly intertwined with the lives she'd touched through basketball, she was again reminded that her extended basketball family — one composed of players and colleagues from a lifetime largely defined by her work with the sport — was just that: a family.

As the team looks for its fourth straight victory tonight, the game will take on special meaning — battling a disease that has forever altered the lives of Frese and her family.

"Life is an interesting experience because, in our daily lives, you can feel that the world is a cold place. There's not always that kindness to your fellow man," Thomas said. "All of a sudden, there's this outcrying of selflessness of people you've never even met before. It really restores your faith in your fellow man."

• THE NEXT CALL

Bringing Tyler to that September appointment had been nothing more than an afterthought for his father. It was Markus, whose fever-like symptoms the night before reminded him of the virus Tyler came down with three weeks prior, who he believed was sick.

"I figured I'd schedule something for them both because Tyler just hadn't been right," Thomas said.

That decision may have saved Tyler's life.

Parrish immediately grew concerned with Tyler's pale coloring and cuticles and acted — ordering the blood test that would confirm the diagnosis she already feared.The next thing Thomas knew, they were in the emergency room at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. As he was bombarded with information on his son's illness amid the chaos of the hospital, Thomas knew one unenviable task still lay ahead of him: He would have to call his wife, who was in Indiana on a recruiting trip.

"I had had a great day of recruiting and I was driving back to my hotel," Frese said. "My husband called and told me to pull over, and that's when he let me know that our son was diagnosed with leukemia."

"Without question, the hardest phone call I've ever remembered making in my life," Thomas said. "She's in a rental car in the middle of nowhere and I'm in an emergency room, and there was nothing I could do to comfort her."

Each feared the obvious worst-case scenario.

"Not knowing anything about leukemia, your first thought is, ‘Oh, my God. How long does my son have to live?'" Frese said. "You're in a total state of shock. ... I was hysterical."

Frese flew into Baltimore-Washington International Airport early the next morning; Tyler was to go through his first series of treatment, which included the surgical insertion of a port into his chest to more easily administer medication and take blood samples. That day, Frese didn't leave the hospital once. She remained there for the entire week Tyler spent there.

After 29 days of intense treatment, a spinal tap and analysis of a bone marrow sample revealed Tyler had acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of leukemia in children and the most treatable form of the blood cancer. When he was diagnosed, the leukemia had already spread to 80 percent of his blood. Had it not been discovered when it was, he would have died within weeks.

"We were extremely fortunate," Thomas said. "If you had to be dealt a card, ours was the most favorable. They could tell us now that he has a 90 percent chance of beating this thing."

• TEAM TYLER

As Tyler and his family coped with his treatment, which included intense steroid and chemotherapy cycles, and settled back at home, Frese returned to Comcast Center — her second home.

"When I came back after that week, it was crazy," Frese said. "I needed to come back to work for some kind of sanity."

The ninth-year coach now faced the task of telling her team and the program's alumnae of Tyler's diagnosis. What would stem from those conversations proved nothing short of remarkable.

After Frese told former standout Marissa Coleman of Tyler's illness, word spread to ex-teammates Kristi Toliver, Shay Doron and Laura Harper, all starters on the Terps' 2006 national championship squad.