Double Duty

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It's Nov. 30, game day. The Terps -- undefeated to that point and ranked No. 3 in the nation -- are facing another Top 20 team, Ohio State, at Comcast Center on the College Park campus. Maryland is in the final stretch of a 14-games-in-31-days grind.

8 a.m. Frese is up and on the phone for a radio interview. She and Thomas climb into his silver sports ute and swing by their favorite cafe -- the appropriately named Eggspectation -- in Ellicott City. After an egg, French toast and smoothie breakfast, they arrive at Comcast Center. Most days they stop by Starbucks. She orders a grande skim no-whip hot chocolate, he a soy chai. Frese settles into her black leather desk chair.

10 a.m. In a black sweat suit with her hair in a ponytail, she checks e-mails and answers phone calls in her office. The ground-floor room is a shrine to her team. On the walls are huge pictures of the championship games and beaming young players. Commemorative balls and trophies are here and there on the shelves. Written on a rock on her desk: Success is a journey, not a destination.

"It's going to be a loooonnng day," she says.

Sleeping, she says, is difficult -- "it's disjointed." One recent night, she was up at 3 to drink a protein shake and again at 6 to eat a power bar.

She tries to work out on the treadmill, but it often hurts her back. When her bad disk flares up, Thomas helps her upstairs. She uses a long Snoogle pillow to help her sleep. Her ribs hurt at times. She says she doesn't have the nervous energy she used to.

Staffers drop by. Frese talks about large concerns -- getting info on potential recruits over the holidays -- and small ones, such as which bus to take on a road trip and what color warm-ups the team should wear.

To capitalize on Frese's condition, the athletic department's marketing department is staging what it calls the "World's Largest Baby Shower," which is actually a Toys for Tots drive and an added way to get fans out to the Ohio State game. A couple of marketing mavens sit down with Frese to go over some last-minute details. They plan to show the announcement-in-the-locker-room video at halftime.

Between meetings, Frese takes a breather. "Sometimes I feel activity," she says, looking at her basketball-shaped midsection. "The week we stayed home was the most I have felt them. Not as much this week. But they were really kicking last night."