Double Duty
Pregnant With Twins and Pushing Her Team Toward a Championship, Terps Basketball Coach Brenda Frese Has Her Hands (and Belly) Full

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2007

Back in the fall, Brenda Frese, head coach of the highly ranked University of Maryland women's basketball team, revealed a secret to her players in the locker room. The scene was captured on video to be used by the team's marketing department.

"We're really excited, because we have got two verbal commitments that are going to be coming and being a part of our team," said Frese, 37, a blond motivational machine in sweat clothes.

The two new people, she said, "are close to my heart."

Not knowing what to expect, the players were apprehensively quiet. "I wanted to show pictures to you guys because they are going to be here this spring," Frese said, reaching into a folder.

She pulled out photocopied sonograms of the fraternal twins she is carrying.

The crowd, as they say, went wild. "You're pregnant!" The players whooped and screamed and exchanged high-fives and hugged Frese and each other.

Only now, 12 games into the season and 6 1/2 months into the pregnancy, is reality setting in. Having a child -- um, children -- is a tectonic-shift event. No matter how super-womanic Frese may be, she is being forced to scale back her coaching and her career.

This becomes apparent if you watch her on and off the court for several days. Already she has stopped running the practices and pacing the sidelines during games and screaming at the top of her lungs for defensive players to get back in position. Looking calmer than most any other coach you've ever seen, she sits through games in a black leather office chair. There's a pillow at her back to cushion a bulging disk. Standing rarely, clapping occasionally, she disseminates her court wisdom through assistants. During timeouts, her chair is rolled to the front of the bench so she can sit while instructing the team.

Of course many women must learn to juggle childbirth and workplace, but coaching high-level college basketball -- an increasingly competitive, high-profile, lucrative sport -- is unusually demanding, physically and psychologically. And the coaches interviewed for this story agree that someone who does it successfully is a rare bird.

Life is metaphor for sport. The college basketball season -- from the first chance to recruit in July to the tournament mayhem in March -- mirrors the nine months before birth. A game day, like the birth process, begins slowly, builds swiftly and crescendos into an outburst of controlled chaos. A full term lasts 40 weeks; a game, 40 minutes.

There are obvious upsides to having children while running a major college sports program: "I know what kind of role models our players are," she said, "and just how wonderful they will be with kids." She also thinks her children will be good for the team.

There are downsides. Rival coaches, Frese says, are using her pregnancy to persuade potential players to avoid coming to play for the Terps. "Some people try to spin it as 'How long will she be out?' That's a terrible thing. We're talking about two miracles of life here, not about a basketball game. It's irritating."

Plus there is the question of how her team will respond to her inevitable absences from the bench. Maryland, after all, is in a fight -- with the University of Tennessee, the University of Connecticut and a handful of other teams -- to be No. 1 in the country. She stayed home during a recent road trip to California. The Terps, coached by assistant Daron Park, fell behind to UCLA by 16 points with just over six minutes to play, but rallied to win.

Their first loss of the season came Monday to Rutgers University, 68-60. They won two nights later, 74-69, over Middle Tennessee State. Frese wasn't courtside because of a stomach bug. Tonight they play Northern Iowa.

Two years ago, the Terps were national champs. Last year they lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament to unranked Ole Miss. This year, with four starters from that championship squad still on the team and an 11-1 start, hope is alive.

And kicking. Frese is on track to deliver the twins sometime near the end of the season. Her due date is March 11, two days after the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament ends and less than two weeks before the NCAA extravaganza. She believes they will come earlier.

These are her first. She and her husband, Mark Thomas, also 37, have been trying to have children for a couple of years. "Between us and the team," Thomas says, "the twins will be spoiled with attention."

For Frese, her job is a dream come true. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she played at the University of Arizona, where she graduated in 1993, then was an assistant at Kent State and Iowa State. "I loved her energy level," says Iowa State women's basketball coach Bill Fennelly, who hired her. "She recruits as well as any head coach in the country." Parents feel comfortable sending their kids to Frese, he adds.

Her first head coaching job was at Ball State. In her first game, the Cardinals upset the University of Minnesota. When the Minnesota head-coaching job opened up, the Gophers hired Frese. She coached there one year -- in 2001-2002 -- and was named NCAA coach of the year. Two of her players, Lindsey Whalen and Janel McCarville, went on to the WNBA. Maryland lured her away from Minnesota after that season.

For Thomas -- also a blond dynamo in athletic clothes -- the care and feeding of Frese right now is Job 1. The two met in the fall of 2004. Thomas, an Emmy Award-winning TV producer, was doing video work for the university. They married in August 2005.

These days, Thomas works for his family. He says Frese's annual salary -- $215,000 a year plus extras, according to the campus newspaper -- allows him to take time off. He is his wife's personal assistant and a stay-at-home about-to-be dad. He doesn't cook much, she says, "but he can put things together." Occasionally his mother, who lives in Laurel, cooks dinner for the expectant couple. On a recent night she sent over pork chops, rice and applesauce.

The family room of their home in Laurel is crammed with a double stroller and a baby swing, next to the card table where Frese sits most evenings, watching game film and taking notes on a legal pad. Thomas often sits nearby, watching sports on TV.

In the mustard-colored children's room, Thomas points out baby clothes he bought on eBay: 27 outfits for $26. "I have no desire to put a nursery together," Frese says. She is leaving it up to an interior decorator.

* * *

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."

As a coach, she says, you always want to be prepared. "I have read the books, taken the class." She's done everything but break down film.

When she gets a chance, she talks to other female head coaches who have had babies while on the job. It's not a large sorority. "We are the deviant ones," Agnus Berenato, coach of the University of Pittsburgh women's team and mother of five, says with a laugh.

Frese groans when she opens an e-mail from her brother, who suggests naming the twins Pat and Geno -- after the head coaches of Tennessee and UConn.

1 p.m. In the locker room, players retie their shoes and joke with one another. They turn to watch a video screen as Daron Park -- who has taken over much of the physical coaching demands for Frese -- uses a laser pointer to illustrate certain quirks in Ohio State's game.

Frese has already given them a speech about how they must conquer the "fatigue factor" with toughness. "It's all about toughness," she says. "You need to be able to play a 40-minute game."

Chalk talk is over. "All right," somebody shouts. "Let's go get some shots up!"

1:45 p.m. During shoot-around, Frese talks with ESPN announcers on the sidelines. Junior Kristi Toliver, who sank a buzzer-beater in 2006 against Duke to send the national championship game into overtime, pauses during the practice. She thinks Frese will have no trouble juggling the personal and professional. "I don't think anything can slow Coach B down, even with a couple of babies in her belly." She adds, "Hopefully we will get to babysit."

Freshman forward Drey Mingo, who hopes to be a pediatric cardiologist, is going with Frese and Thomas this weekend to see the sonograms. "She's kind of like a mother away from home," Mingo says. "We're all just a bunch of babies, anyway."

The women gather at center court, like one big, successful family. They raise their hands in the air. "Champions. On three. One . . . two . . . three . . . Champions!"

3 p.m. The pregame meal is in the Terrapin Room of the Sir Walter Raleigh restaurant, not far away. It's decorated with a baby shower theme -- baby bottle centerpiece, pink and blue baby bracelets and pacifiers and balloons.

4 p.m. Frese goes to take a shower and get her hair done.

5:30 p.m. She reappears in a burgundy maternity blouse and black slacks. Her hair is down. She smiles. Camera-ready, she pauses in the hallway for a TV interview.

6:30 p.m. She sits in the locker room waiting to give the pregame pep talk. "The babies are kicking," she says, putting two hands on her belly. "They're excited for the game."

She stands in front of a white board and makes a few last-minute points about the Buckeyes. "Be ready to rip through the pressure," she says. "They are going to be in your shorts."

Nobody out-rebounds us this season, she demands.

Before the game she ceremonially presents a toy to a pair of Marines as part of the baby shower promotion. Then she compares notes with Kelly Meury, an assistant for Ohio State who is also pregnant. "That's something you don't see much," says one fan. "Two coaches talking baby talk courtside."

7 p.m. During the game, Frese sits in her padded leather chair, which has been rolled from her office to a spot next to the bench. Park does the subbing and shouting. Not far away Mark Thomas sits with his parents. He yells at the refs, claps for hustling players and speaks to various fans. He even sends text messages to parents who can't be at the game.

The Terps play precision basketball. They choose shots wisely. They box out on rebounds. They push the ball up the floor. They dive for balls. And they seem to love the game. At the half, they are up by 14.

Frese's sonogram operator walks past. "She's the only person in the world who knows what we are having," Thomas says.

The Terps win, 77-53.

"We're the first team in the country to go 10 and 0," Frese says, referring to this intensely competitive season, and that they can still say no team has out-rebounded them, because Ohio State and Maryland brought down 42 rebounds apiece.

"Hell of a job," she says.

Frese stops by the media room for postgame questions. Thomas is there with the final stats.

9:30 p.m. As they walk toward their silver SUV, Frese pats her belly and sighs. Thomas carries her bags. They talk about the game and people they saw. And he tells Brenda what his mom cooked for the victory dinner: a chicken and broccoli casserole.

They will eat it when they get home.