Hayden Laufgraben survived leukemia. Now he lives out his dream as Temple’s basketball manager.

Inside a mostly empty Liacouras Center, Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Lynn Greer III fire shot after shot more than an hour before practice is scheduled to begin. The Temple men’s basketball guards do not need to chase after the ball following each attempt, because Hayden Laufgraben is under the basket to grab the rebound and pass back out to the three-point arc.

That is the unheralded, behind-the-scenes work synonymous with being a student manager. But that Laufgraben was on the arena floor on this seemingly normal Thursday was actually an everyday victory.

Two years ago, the 18-year-old had begun a stretch of weeks-long stays at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia after being diagnosed with leukemia. In March of 2023, he had a bone marrow transplant.

Laufgraben overcame all of that to enroll at Temple in the fall, and join the basketball program in this capacity after the cancer prematurely ended his high-school playing career. He is a positive light for an Owls team with an overhauled roster and 7-4 record heading into Saturday’s home matchup against Rhode Island. For Laufgraben — a childhood Temple superfan and now an aspiring coach — this opportunity, at this time, at this place is “really special.”

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“I never switched the mindset that this is going to get better. This is just a blip in my life,” Laugraben told The Inquirer from Temple’s practice facility earlier this month. “And I think that I can be seen as an inspiration as, ‘Look at me now. I’m here. I’m working with Temple basketball, something that I dreamed of my whole life.’”

The first story Laufgraben tells about his passion for Temple is that, when the Owls upset then-No. 5 Duke at the Wells Fargo Center in 2012, he asked (as a 6-year-old) his mother, Jodi Levine-Laufgraben, if he could storm the court with students.

Mom, after all, is a massive reason for his deep connection to their favorite university. She earned her doctorate degree from Temple and has worked at the school for more than three decades, currently as the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Assessment and Institutional Research.

So Hayden spent Take Your Child to Work Days on campus, and requested email updates while at summer overnight camp about the student-athletes Jodi ran into that day. He also woke up at dawn on Halloween to join the crowd for a 2015 live broadcast of ESPN’s College GameDay ahead of the Owls’ football game against Notre Dame. And he spent winter nights inside the Liacouras Center, pairing cheers for lesser-known basketball players with encyclopedic knowledge of their statistics and backgrounds.

“Temple University has always been one of his happy places,” said Hayden’s father, Ross. “He’s been going to games since he was a baby, really.”

Hayden also grew up playing basketball. But just before the start of his junior season at Cherry Hill East High School, the family began checking into what Ross described as a “weird hard spot” and pain in the webbing between two of Hayden’s fingers. That eventually led to blood work that yielded concerning results, and a phone call from doctors that Hayden should immediately go to CHOP.

That abrupt hospital visit derailed the family’s plans to attend a Temple-Villanova basketball game that night. So Hayden pulled up the livestream on his cell phone and watched with a nurse, who was a Villanova graduate but rooted for the Owls alongside him.

“She must have had a heads-up that this kid is about to get some life-changing news,” Jodi said. " … Temple won that night. I don’t know, maybe that was an omen that he was going to get here and beat it.

“But even that night, in the emergency room, with doctors in and out, he was watching the game. And he kept saying, ‘Do you think we’ll get to the game?’”

The diagnosis: acute myeloid leukemia, which occurs when bone marrow produces too many abnormal blood cells. It’s a type of cancer that affects about 500 children in the United States per year, according to CHOP’s website. In response, Hayden’s brain immediately went to a sports analogy, recalling his parents’ advice when he argued with officials during games.

“If you pout and complain and feel sad for yourself,” Hayden said, “nobody’s going to come and say, ‘Oh, never mind. We were lying. It didn’t happen.’ I just kind of, right away, was like, ‘I have to be positive about this. If I attack every day with a positive mindset, not only will it make me feel better on the day-to-day. But I think it’ll end up giving me the best chance for the result that I want in the long run.’”

The treatment plan was extensive and aggressive. His first round of chemotherapy lasted five weeks, all in the hospital and during the holiday season. His second round required an eight-day hospital stay, then a new at-home recovery program that still came with strict COVID-like protocols and the caveat that, if he spiked a fever, he would immediately return to CHOP.

His third round was an intense five days to prepare for the bone-marrow transplant, which the family believes came across the Atlantic Ocean from a 31-year-old stranger from Italy. After that procedure, Hayden spent another nine weeks in the hospital to finish essentially wiping out his old immune system and welcoming another.

Hayden relished the doses of normal life, such as home-cooked meals and spending time with his two dogs. Dad, meanwhile, marveled at his son’s unwavering strength, while Mom was heartened by the politeness Hayden showed toward doctors and nurses — even when they woke him up in the middle of the night to check vital signs.

“You don’t want to learn about somebody’s character through a challenge like this,” Jodi said. “But we did learn about what an incredible young man he really is.”

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And while living on CHOP’s third floor, Hayden became the unofficial sports resource.

He told nurses which games were most important each night, so they could flip other patients’ televisions to the correct channels. He constantly wore Temple gear, thanks to care packages sent by the football and men’s basketball programs. He also received notes of encouragement from the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and Jason Kelce, along with baseball star Anthony Rizzo, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 18. Hayden’s high school coach, Dave Allen, sent him film to dissect from the junior-season games he missed.

Before his second round of chemo, Hayden watched one Temple game from a Liacouras Center suite, where he and a few friends could stay spread out and masked. Hayden also went to one Cherry Hill East game during treatment, but had to sit by himself behind the bench.

Though Hayden was back in school by October of his senior year — months before doctors projected — he was not medically cleared to play basketball again. Instead, Allen carved out an assistant coach-type role for Hayden, with permission to offer in-game feedback.

“People can make a career out of this?” Hayden asked himself. “This is what I want to do.”

Temple coach Adam Fisher, meanwhile, first learned of Hayden and his family shortly after he was hired in 2023. He invited them to a practice, where Hayden spoke to the group, broke down the huddle, and chatted with the coach for about an hour. Once Hayden unsurprisingly chose Temple as his college destination, he inquired about becoming a basketball manager, a role Fisher once held as a Penn State student and for which he continues to have a soft spot.

Hayden began assisting the team during summer workouts, soaking in the “really cool moment” of his first day sharing the practice floor with players. During a meal following one of those early sessions, Fisher noticed the initially shy Hayden fitting in with the group.

“It was eight or nine players, three or four managers, and he was one of them,” Fisher said. “It was just that conversation. They were talking about music and sports and life, and you didn’t know who was a player, who was a manager.

“It was just friends hanging out. Right then I was like, ‘Whoa, he’s connected with our guys. Our guys feel a connection with him.’”

By September, those new teammates were spending a rainy Sunday morning at CHOP’s Parkway Walk & Run. When Hayden was announced as an event ambassador, a huge cheer erupted. The Owls had formally merged with other attendees from Hayden’s life, including his camp friends, who made pink “Hayden’s Army” bracelets during his treatment, and his high school teammates, who wore “Team Hayden” shooting shirts before games.

“For him to see those visual reminders every day that he’s not alone,” Jodi said, “there are people in his corner, there are people rooting for him, it means everything to us.”

Added Fisher: “It was a great day for him, but I don’t know if he understands the impact it had on our team. He’s really battled some tough things, and we just want to be around him to show him, ‘Hey, you’re part of our family.’”

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Hayden’s doctor’s appointments are becoming less frequent, but still sometimes include an infusion to make sure his body continues to operate correctly post-surgery. He must remain cognizant of some restrictions that he acknowledges are “pretty funny,” such as the temperature his steak is cooked or how exposed he is to sunlight while visiting his family’s home down the shore.

Otherwise, Hayden’s new normal includes working home games, where he mans the baseline and mops sweat off the floor. He is studying in the school of sports, tourism and hospitality management, and recently completed an end-of-semester project to create a basketball “experience.”

He spent that Thursday morning earlier this month inside the Owls’ practice facility, dapping up players as they arrived for weightlifting sessions. Morgan Truckermiller, Temple’s head manager, said that day that Hayden’s instant reliability and passion as a manager already makes her feel like “we brought in a freshman who I know I can hand things down to, who I know is going to take care of this program once I leave.”

A handshake between Hayden and Mashburn at the end of their pre-practice shooting session epitomized his unsung impact, which freshman guard Aiden Tobiason added often comes with a mental boost.

“Sometimes, when you do something good in practice,” Tobiason said, “coaches aren’t always going to say, ‘Good job’ or something. But [managers] have your back. They’ll say, ‘That was tough.’ They’ll lift you up at some points.”

Just like Hayden’s loved ones have lifted his spirits throughout the two-plus years since his diagnosis. College basketball’s annual Jimmy V Week — during which ESPN raises funds for cancer research in honor of the late, legendary coach Jim Valvano — concluded last weekend. Jodi has no doubt that, someday, Hayden will be on a program’s bench not just to coach, but to pay it forward by raising awareness about the disease.

Until then, he will take it one doctor’s visit at a time.

One blood test at a time.

And, now, one Temple game at a time.

“I won’t be playing in the MLB or playing in the NBA or anything professionally,” Hayden said. “But everybody’s voice matters. If I can tell my story and let somebody know, ‘Hey, I got through this. I know you can,’ I think just being able to do that is so important.”