Unveiled : Bell-Jeff Guard Ticsay Discards Bandanna That Hid Her Secret

BURBANK — The taunts she could cope with. The fear of public exposure and embarrassment--that was more difficult.

“Hey, bandanna girl!” opposing fans yelled at Bell-Jeff High basketball player Christina Ticsay, who wore a blue bandanna on her head.

“Hey, gangster!” they barked at the shy valedictory candidate with a 4.02 grade-point average. Ticsay would say nothing, except to herself.

“Don’t worry about it,” she breathed. “It’s no big deal.”

Of course, it was a big deal, but it was easier to keep quiet. Say nothing. Let her coach hand the referee the Southern Section’s letter granting Ticsay permission to wear head covering while she played.

The hecklers didn’t know, couldn’t know, that Ticsay, 17, suffered from Alopecia Areata, a skin disorder that caused all her body hair to fall out.

At the age of 15, she wore a bandanna to cover the fact that she was bald.

And if the covering were knocked off during a game, exposing her baldness--her difference ? Well, she simply couldn’t allow that to happen.

“I was afraid someone would hit me and the bandanna would come off,” she said. “I was kind of tentative.”

For the past two seasons, Ticsay has taken pains to avoid contact, staying on the perimeter and shooting three-point shots. The 5-foot-7 senior guard shot 38% from three-point range and averaged 12 points a game last season. Rebounding and scrambling for loose balls under the basket were left to others. The bandanna never came off.

“But a couple times it moved a little, and even that disturbed me,” she said.

Even now that the disorder is in remission, Ticsay’s thoughts stray to its possible return.

“Right now, it’s my biggest fear,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to go through it again.”

Ticsay’s ordeal began in the summer of 1991, when she noticed a small bald spot in her head that rapidly expanded. “I was scared because I thought maybe it was life-threatening,” she said.

It wasn’t, but soon Ticsay lost all her body hair. She had a severe case of the disorder, in which it is believed the body’s immune system reacts to its hair follicles and rejects them. It is a rare, painless condition with no other symptoms that tends to afflict children or young adults. It has no known cure, though it can be treated.

“We were all devastated by it,” said Ticsay’s mother, Norma.

Ticsay, who had always been quiet and introverted, found it hard to concentrate on anything other than the stares she received and the questions people asked.

“There were a lot of misconceptions,” she said. “People asked, did I have cancer? That sort of stuff. I felt very self-conscious and I didn’t want to go out in public any more.”

Playing basketball was a lifeline to normalcy.

As a sophomore, Ticsay averaged nine points a game and set a school record with five three-pointers in one game. She played well enough to be an All-Camino Real League and All-Southern Section Division IV second-team pick last season, and was voted the most inspirational player on a team that advanced to the Division IV-A championship game.

In the spring of her sophomore year, UCLA dermatologist Dr. Richard Kaplan prescribed Dinitrochlorobenzene, an ointment applied to her scalp. DNCB induces an allergy--an immune reaction--which is thought to jar the body’s immune system and set it straight.

“How it works is not entirely clear,” Kaplan said.

But it did work, and though the reaction caused a painful body rash that plagued Ticsay for two weeks during that summer, her hair began to grow back.

The follicles grew out as white tufts, but gradually filled out and reacquired their color. Still, she wore the bandanna during games and always sported a cap to school.

But one day last May, she arrived at school hatless for the first time in more than a year. When she stepped onto the small Burbank campus, her friends ran toward her, laughing and smiling.

Her coach wasn’t so quick to notice.

“I walked right past her in the hallway,” Bell-Jeff Coach Jim Couch said. “She said, ‘Coach!’ I looked in her eyes and I could tell that she really wanted me to notice. All day that day I kept smiling to her and saying, ‘Who’s this new girl in school?’ ”

Meet the new Christina Ticsay, whose stiff black hair is only the most tangible sign of her growth.

“I’ve been known throughout my life as a shy person, always keeping to myself, but I’ve kind of matured,” she said. “The whole school has noticed that I’ve become more open. I’ve learned inner strength.”

Ticsay’s renewal also extends to the basketball court. “Her confidence level is riding sky high this year,” Couch said. “She’s playing like Superman.”

Couch is equally optimistic that Ticsay will have a senior season memorable for them both.

“I put kids’ pictures on the wall when they’ve had a good season,” Couch said. “Last year, I just couldn’t bring myself to put that picture (of Ticsay in the bandanna) up. It’s an unflattering one. I figured I’d just wait until this year, because I want a nice picture of her on my wall. . . .

“It looks like I’m going to get one.”