On Sunday, Tyler Wilt sat, waiting patiently.
He'd been doing a lot of that lately.
Sitting in the doctor's office, the hospital, the press box at Terry L. Marcus Stadium.
Article Photos
Photo courtesy of The Tim Tebow Foundation
Washington senior quarterback Tyler Wilt, left, stands with New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow as Wilt shows off Tebow’s signature over his scar from cancer surgery. Wilt visited Tebow in New York and watched the Jets/Bills game over the weekend.
Photo courtesy of the Tim Tebow Foundation
Tim Tebow gives the game ball to Tyler Wilt before the New York Jets played the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.
Waiting.
This time, however, he was at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., sitting in a conference room. And he was waiting on Tim Tebow.
Just about a week earlier, he sat upstairs at the house of friend and teammate Tony Vazquez - waiting on Vazquez to get back from talking to his parents so the two could get back to watching college football.
He had no idea what was about to happen.
Wilt had been diagnosed with cancer in May. He'd experienced discomfort in his chest while working out in preparation for the upcoming football season, so much so he had to go to the hospital to see what was wrong.
The news was bad.
He had a large germ cell tumor in his chest that was taking up the space near his lungs.
He started chemotherapy, and on Aug. 15, Wilt had the tumor removed.
Doctors opened up his chest, took the growth out in two pieces, inserted a titanium rod and sewed him back up.
"They cut my entire sternum open and they acted like it was dangerous because it was in such a critical area," Wilt said.
He'll have a scar there for the rest of his life as a reminder. On Sunday, he had Tebow's signature written there in felt pen - a final farewell from an unforgettable weekend after the Jets' QB prayed with Tyler and his family in that aforementioned conference room.
"We were just about to leave and I was finishing talking with him and I went and grabbed a permanent marker and went up to him," Wilt said. "I said 'One more thing: Sign on this line please!' He laughed and said he'd do it."
A week earlier, Wilt had no clue that would ever happen.
Wilt had passed for 1,076 yards and nine touchdowns and ran for 750 more and 11 scores during his junior season in 2011 as Washington's starting quarterback. He expected to exceed all of those numbers this year and lead the Patriots to their first playoff berth in five tries since the school's inception.
His friend expected even more.
"He was by far gonna be the best quarterback in the state," said Vazquez, who's a fullback and linebacker for Washington.
But the cancer left him depleted, unable to play football as he recovers. And, so far, he's expected to make a full recovery. Things are much clearer for Wilt.
And even before the whirlwind of the past week, he knew he had a great friend.
As Wilt waited, a nervous Vazquez walked upstairs, followed by the two boys' parents.
The Wilts and the Vazquezes had just finished eating, and the parents were enjoying some time outside as the two took in their favorite sport on the television when Tracie Wilt received a phone call.
It was the Tim Tebow Foundation, telling her that her son and her family was invited to New York for a weekend that would be capped with a trip to watch the New York Jets take on the Buffalo Bills.
It had all started with a simple email.
Just three days after Wilt had been diagnosed with cancer, Vazquez sat in front of his computer, mulling ways to help his ailing friend.
"I remember how I broke down completely when I found out he had cancer," Vazquez said. "We thought he had a bad flu, and we were on the way to the hospital to bring him some magazines so he could entertain himself when I found out. I broke down thinking of all the hard work we put in together. I don't remember being that unhappy before."
So Vazquez wrote to the foundation, requesting just something small. A picture. A football. Anything to lift his friend's spirits.
What he got was the chance to tell his buddy that he was going to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
"(Our parents) brought me downstairs and his mom said they wanted me to tell him," Vazquez said. "I didn't know how I was gonna say it. I just know I had a smile on my face.
"We didn't cry, though. There were enough tears from our mothers."
Wilt couldn't believe it. He thought they were kidding. It was anything but a joke.
"It was just excitement for him to have something so wonderful happen," said Tyler's mom, Tracie Wilt. "It was amazing that we were at their house when we got the call. ... Being at the Vazquezes' home, that was God working there.
"It just made me feel like he was being blessed with this awesome opportunity after he was fighting this battle."
The Wilts are devout Christians, and much like Tebow, Tyler doesn't let anything shake his faith.
And his trip, and a conversation he had with Tebow after the Jets dismantled the Bills 48-28, put everything in even more perspective.
"I think my faith has gotten better through it," Tyler said. "I started off and felt really bad. I thought I was being punished for nothing, but through it my faith has gotten stronger."
Tyler, his mother, his father, Troy, and sister, Talia, left for New York on Saturday morning and toured Times Square in the evening, complete with a dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. On Sunday morning, the Wilts were escorted by limousine to MetLife Stadium and spent pregame warmups on the field with Tebow and the Jets.
Before the game, Tebow gave Tyler the game ball, then went on to rush only five times for 11 yards during the game. But to Wilt, Tebow will never be measured by any numbers in a box score.
It's the time he spent after the game, walking around the field, talking about life, about God, and sharing a couple laughs. That'll mean the most.
"Most people see Tebow and see he's happy all the time," Tyler said. "But he's really a lot funnier than I thought he would be."
The exact jokes told will be left between the two quarterbacks.
Afterward, the two came back into the stadium and they prayed. A real-life moment of true 'Tebowing.' But unlike all the popular spoofs and memes, this meant something. It had substance.
"(We) all prayed together, and he prayed for me, for everything to go well," Tyler said, "and I thought that was pretty big."
Wilt, who was relegated to watching his Patriots play from the press box, has now been cleared to come down to the field and watch for the remainder of the season.
"I couldn't stand it up there away from my teammates," he said.
Those prayers, big and small, seem to be working.
"We just take it one day at a time," Tracie said.
On the way home Monday, Wilt stopped in for a scheduled blood test to check his alpha-fetoprotein level. A low level means good things. So far, so good.
It'll take about eight months for Tyler to get healthy enough to lift weights and get back into football shape. He plans on putting on a helmet and shoulder pads again as soon as possible.
Some advice from Tebow helped him realize he could do that, too.
"I was talking with him about playing football at a prep school," Tyler said. "He said that if that's what I want to do, I should. He said - and let me get this right - he said he'd never regretted something that he tried and failed at. He said he had very few regrets in life because everything he tries, he works really hard at."
That advice happened because of a simple email from an great friend.
"I was so happy for him I could barely sleep the night before (he left for New York) thinking about how much it meant to him," Vazquez said.
Vazquez and the Patriots had just suffered a loss to Sherando, Va., that night, and Vazquez had been dinged up in the game. He was upset - until he saw Tyler.
"Every time I think about Tyler, everything changes," he said. "Knowing that I'm healthy and have a great family, I could be mad about something but it really won't last too long."
As for Tyler, he's on his way to being 100 percent healthy, too.
"It's coming along really well," Tyler said. "I don't take that much pain medication anymore. Sometimes it'll hurt when I lay down, but that's it."
"Everything," Tracie added, "looks pretty darn good right now."
It was all worth the wait.
"Dreams," Tyler said, "really can come true."
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