A picture is sometimes worth more than a thousand words, especially when it comes to gaining new perspective after a tough college championship loss.

Many Americans, including small children, are dealing with life-and-death issues that make sports, scores and contests pale in comparison.

The Maryland Terps men’s lacrosse team suffered a heartbreaking title match loss in overtime to North Carolina this past weekend. Yet after the game, John Tillman, Maryland’s head coach, sat in a hallway not bemoaning his team’s loss but instead consoling five-year-old Fionn Crimmins, an honorary teammate who is fighting his own battle. The boy’s opponent? Leukemia.

“Talk about putting a loss into perspective … Coach Tillman consoling Terps fan Fionn, who’s fighting cancer…” tweeted CNS reporter Brent Harris, who captured the touching moment.

Young Fionn Crimmins, of Kensington, Maryland, was paired with the Terps, courtesy of a program called Team Impact. College teams “draft” children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses to give them a boost, making themselves “teammates” in the child’s health battle and offering support to the family. Crimmins loves his Terps and the feeling is apparently mutual.

[lz_third_party includes=”https://twitter.com/BrentCSN/status/737384247514783744″ width=”630px”]

Kelsey Burke, regional manager for the mid-Atlantic and west regions for Team Impact, facilitates the relationship between the boy and his Terps.

“Fionn is doing well. His treatments are going according to plan,” she told LifeZette. “In the middle of September we matched Finn with the Terps. They met during a scrimmage in the fall and they really hit it off. Finn and his family had very little experience with lacrosse and now it’s all he talks about — he even started playing on his own team last November. It’s ‘all Terps all the time’ for Fionn.”

One key to the Team Impact’s program is the leadership team. “Four to six student athletes are on the leadership team once the match is made,” explained Burke. “These student-athletes oversee the relationship, and make sure it goes well. Fionn gets to know whole team, but the leadership team makes sure the relationship thrives. What’s important to us is that while lacrosse is a spring sport, Fionn battles his medical reality year-round, so in the off-season the players are doing things with him that have nothing to do with lacrosse.”

She added, “In the fall, the leadership team took him bowling in the student center, and one of the guys, over school break, took a couple of pints of ice cream over for an ice cream party. They have jumped all in to support not only Fionn but his family, too. Illness affects everyone in the family.”

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

[lz_ndn video=30905652]

The players and the boy have such a strong relationship that before the team faced Syracuse last week in the NCAA quarterfinals, Tillman and most of the other players cut their hair in a show of solidarity for their youngest “teammate.” Crimmins has another year of treatment ahead of him and in early May, he started losing his hair again.

The family was blown away by the team’s support and response.

Family, friends and teammates will do just about anything to ease this kid’s suffering. Just last week, Crimmins was in the emergency room with a chemotherapy-related fever, and his father re-wrote the Bruno Mars song “Uptown Funk” in order to scatter Terps lacrosse player references throughout the song.

“It’s a lot of just mixing the words ‘Terps,’ ‘Terps are the best,’ and ‘Go Terps,’” Fionn’s dad, Conor Crimmins, told The Washington Post.

Mary Hart, the mother of Reading, Massachusetts, lacrosse player CJ Hart, who plays goalie for the town’s championship team, told LifeZette, “CJ as a goalie keeps reliving the Maryland goalie’s pain in letting that last one in. I will share this story to CJ to let him know the depth of good will and commitment this team has for others — especially one special little boy.”

Brian Tobin, a lacrosse coach in the same community, told LifeZette, “This story absolutely keeps everything in perspective, and what a ride this young boy has had with his team. The best part of playing sports or being involved with a team is that you can forget your own reality — in this case serious illness — and just have fun.”

“The best part of playing sports or being involved with a team is that you can forget your own reality — in this case is serious illness — and just have fun,” said one lacrosse coach.

With a child’s innocence and joy, Fionn Crimmins was spotted on the ESPN broadcast after the game, skipping around and high-fiving his Maryland teammates, according to 247Sports.com.

The group at Team Impact is working hard to create more stories just like this one. Begun in 2011, Team Impact has matched 950 children with teams on over 400 college and university campuses.

“Each year we grow, and our mission is to improve the quality of life for children facing chronic or life-threatening illnesses with the power of ‘team,’’’ said Burke. “We match kids with a local college team to give them the boost to keep fighting. And the players get just as much — if not more — out of the relationship.”

Team Impact has 12 matches in Maryland alone, and is anxious to help other kids anywhere in the country who are battling illness.

“We have over a thousand teams that are waiting to participate,” said Burke. “Anything anyone can do to tell a family dealing with illness that we’re out here and available to them — we are ready to match a child with a waiting team in their area.”