With a .500 record against a difficult schedule, a sophomore quarterback and injuries to some of his top players, first-year Loyola coach Brian Abbott already had plenty to deal with during the weeks leading to tomorrow's 75th Thanksgiving Day game with Calvert Hall.

Then came the illness of his wife of five years, Stacey. A staphylococcal infection to her right elbow left her hospitalized for five days. Tomorrow will mark the 14th day Stacey has been at home, and she expects to attend the 10 a.m. game at Ravens Stadium. But she still is on antibiotics, and said her husband has had his hands full as a coach, father and "being my personal nurse."

"I have an [intravenous needle] in my left arm and stitches in my right elbow, so he couldn't leave me with the kids because I couldn't pick them up," said Stacey, who has a 3-year-old daughter and 10-month-old twins. "We've had help from family and friends, but he mostly had to rearrange his schedule to take care of the kids and to change the dressing on my arm twice a day."

Through it all, Abbott missed one practice.

"There were times where he'd come in looking unshaven, frazzled and disheveled because of what he's got going, but he continued to put the kids first. That says a lot about his diligence and his dedication," said Dave Schroeder, one of Abbott's five assistants.

"Brian teaches math to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, but for the past six days, I've taken his sixth-grade class. I'm a computer science teacher, but he prepared notes that were like, 'Today, Dave, have them read Page 396 and do this, this and this.' I was able to wing it because everything was so well-scripted for me - just like his football practices."

If Abbott never seemed as if he were in over his head, it might be because he's been an underdog before.

That's how it was when Abbott took his first head coaching position at St. Paul's in 1994, a year after Mitch Tullai retired as the area's second-winningest football coach with 209 career victories and 10 Maryland Scholastic Association titles.

And it was that way at the start of this season, when Abbott replaced Loyola's Joe Brune, who retired after 35 years, 210 victories and three Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference crowns.

"All you can do is come in, be yourself and care about the kids," said Abbott, 36, who is 58-25 in nine seasons as a head coach, winning MIAA B Conference crowns in 1995 and 1996. "You don't replace legends. You don't look at it that way. That's been my attitude since Day One. You have to understand that the previous coach had his tenure, and you need to come in and establish what you believe in and your relationships with the kids."

Abbott has had to do that over the course of a brutal schedule - one he inherited from Brune, a stickler for learning the hard way.

The schedule included teams that vied for championships in their leagues, such as Gonzaga of Washington, which won the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title Monday. The schedule also included three-time Interstate Athletic Conference champion Georgetown Prep, four-time state champ Urbana of Frederick, Pennsylvania power Malvern Prep and, locally, four-time MIAA A conference champ Gilman.

"One day in the beginning of the year, Joe Brune told me, 'Coach, don't worry about your schedule. Just coach the kids.' Every game has been a test. But if you're not playing competition, you're not getting anything out of it," said Abbott. "We've had some injuries, but injuries are all part of football. And my attitude is that making adjustments is a part of life.

"When you overcome those kinds of things by making adjustments, it teaches you about preparation and dedication. It only makes you better. If you can walk off the field knowing you gave your best effort, you have something you can build on."