Malik Willis had the private dining room to himself.

In a matter of minutes, the secluded section at The Neighbors Place in Lynchburg, Va., would be packed, and he’d once again be the center of attention. Willis had earned that spotlight over the previous year and a half as the Liberty quarterback rose from obscurity to one of the NFL Draft’s most prized prospects.

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But at this moment on a Monday night in March, Willis had a brief respite from the hoopla when he got a call from a friend. It was Erin Coleman — better known as ErinHope, to those she’s inspired — a 15-year-old from Amherst, Va., who has become entrenched with Liberty’s football program.

Erin just wanted to say hello, just like any other conversation. It was, after all, the night before Willis’ pro day — a significant step in his quest to potentially becoming a top-10 draft pick and the first quarterback off the board.

Willis answered Erin’s FaceTime call, asked how she was doing and told her that he was about to have dinner with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Erin, a lifelong Steelers fan, lit up with joy.

“She was super surprised,” Willis said. “I was like, ‘OK, I got you. I’ll call you back.'”

Willis was joined shortly thereafter at the restaurant by his family and a contingent of Steelers, including head coach Mike Tomlin, offensive coordinator Matt Canada, general manager Kevin Colbert, player personnel coordinator Dan Rooney Jr. and pro scouting coordinator Brandon Hunt.

As they wrapped up dinner — Willis had shrimp and grits, Tomlin had chicken wings and they all shared the crab fries — the quarterback had a request. Willis wanted to return Erin’s call, and he hoped Tomlin would join him.

“I said, ‘Coach, let me call one of your biggest fans. She’s one of Liberty’s biggest fans, too,'” Willis said. “He’s like, ‘It’s cool.’ She was shook. That was too funny.”

Erin’s voice wasn’t strong enough to verbally speak over the phone due to recent health complications, so she communicated with Willis and Tomlin through hand gestures.

Tomlin was excited to get a scouting report that wouldn’t be available anywhere else.

“(Tomlin) said hi to her to ask how she’s doing. She gives the thumbs up,” recalled Erin’s mother, Julie Coleman. “(Tomlin) said, ‘What do you think of this guy? Is he a good guy or a bad guy, thumbs up or thumbs down?’ Of course, she put thumbs up. Malik snatches the phone and goes, ‘You better have said thumbs up!’

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“That’s the thing people don’t understand about him. He’s the same today, tomorrow. I feel he’ll be the same after the draft. Yes, things will change. But he’s just Malik.”

‘One of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet’

ErinHope Coleman was born 24 weeks into Julie’s pregnancy, weighing 1 pound, 11 ounces.

Julie and her husband, Jess, couldn’t hold their third-oldest daughter for two months because her skin hadn’t developed. Erin needed breathing tubes for six months until doctors inserted a trach, which stayed in place until she was 2. She remained an hour away from home at UVA University Hospital’s neonatal unit in Charlottesville until she was cleared to leave as a 9-month-old.

Erin displayed her strength and her spirit every day, so her parents found it natural to combine her first and middle names to ErinHope.

“She’s one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet,” Julie said.

ErinHope is legally blind because she doesn’t have peripheral vision or depth perception, and she sometimes uses a cane to help navigate unfamiliar settings. Her most extensive complication has been with her voice, as the breathing tubes as an infant damaged her airway.

As Erin got older, she recognized her voice wasn’t loud enough for others to hear her in a crowd or busy family environment. She became frustrated that she couldn’t speak up or interject when the room around her was too loud, so the Colemans sought medical advice in 2019.

Doctors in Virginia said her case was too complicated to handle, so they branched out to Cincinnati before ultimately choosing the medical team at Vanderbilt Children’s in Nashville, Tenn. She had surgery to reconstruct her airway and reinstall a trach in May 2020. It was supposed to be a six-month process, and the doctors mapped out six to 10 total surgeries over that timeframe.

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“It should have been over and done with in October 2020,” Julie said. “That was their plan.”

Problems arose when scar tissue continued to build in Erin’s airway. Her doctors then discovered a rare, slow-growing microbacterium in October 2021, and Erin needed six hours of high-dose antibiotics daily until it was eradicated.

She had her 21st surgery in January, returning to Nashville each time. The doctors will try again in June to reconstruct her airway.

“It’s been difficult,” Julie said. “I can’t imagine anyone would say it isn’t.”

Erin has lost almost her entire voice over the past two years. She can whisper and her family can lipread, but she primarily uses a text-to-speech app to communicate with others in person.

Through it all, ErinHope hasn’t lost her positivity.

“She’s such a happy kid,” Julie said.

‘They’re her people’

There’s no such thing as a stranger to ErinHope. She loves being around people and making them happy.

The Colemans, living just 20 minutes down the road, have often attended events at Liberty, and they decided to check out the football team’s scrimmage in the fall of 2018. Fans were able to mingle with the team afterward, and Erin was a social butterfly.

She struck up a conversation and took a photo with linebacker Remington Green. That turned into the Colemans befriending Green’s family, so they’d all hang out together during and after games. Erin eventually forged a similar bond with defensive lineman Jessie Lemonier and linebacker Solomon Ajayi, and she thought it’d be fun to start handing out candy to players as another way to say hi.

“She’s super social,” Julie beamed.

Due to her surgeries and the COVID-19 pandemic, Erin couldn’t be around the team in 2020, but she wanted to stay involved. So she put together boxes of candy — each one decorated in Liberty’s red, white and blue colors and containing a note about the game — and a family friend delivered them to a designated position group every week.

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The team grew more aware of Erin’s health complications when running backs coach Bruce Johnson informed them of an upcoming surgery through their group texting app. Johnson asked the team to send her words of encouragement and to keep ErinHope in their prayers.

Willis sent a text, like so many of his teammates.

Erin thanked him, as she did everyone.

Then Willis sent another text.

And another.

Until a few texts turned into an ever-growing conversation.

“I just felt like I should give her a little boost — not only of confidence but to know somebody is behind you,” Willis said. “She was going through all this stuff, and we’d complain about the littlest things like waking up at 6 a.m. to run. We’re in a blessed position. That’s a way God used her to help me, not only the mentality but understanding that gratefulness. So it’s really about keeping her in good spirits because that can be tough on a person.

“I was just so happy to be a positive influence for her.”

They eventually began playing games together on their phones from cup pong to minigolf to pool to Connect Four. Willis made it very clear that he goes all out to try to win every game they play. He also made it very clear that Erin is a worthy competitor.

“She’s really good. It’s crazy,” Willis said. “She’s funny. She’s like, ‘You’re getting better.’ She used to beat me all the time in cup pong. I used to be trash, but she helped me get better at that. She used to beat me every time, and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ She’s like, ‘You don’t have to let me win.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not!'”

Willis and Erin finally met in person after Liberty beat No. 9 Coastal Carolina in the 2020 Cure Bowl in Orlando. Willis, a dark-horse Heisman Trophy candidate as a first-year starter, gave Erin the sleeve that he wore over his right arm during the game. It was scripted with, “God’s Plan,” which meant plenty to each of them.

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Erin was feeling good enough to be around the team again in 2021. Last August, cornerbacks coach Rickey Hunley invited Erin to a team meeting on her birthday and delivered an emotional message about courage.

Hunley raised one of her gift boxes at the front of the auditorium. He passionately discussed ErinHope’s strength. He then brought her to the front of the team as she drew a loud ovation from every coach and player in the room.

“A lot of people cried when they were in there,” Johnson said.

Aside from attending games last season, Erin was invited to hang around the players’ lounge on Thursdays when she dropped off her candy boxes, and Willis always spent time with her. With the opportunity to ditch the phones for a while, they’d play actual games of pool and Connect Four along with a shared favorite, Bananagrams.

Sometimes, Willis and Erin would wander off to the football field and just hang out to enjoy each other’s company. The personal interaction was incredibly valuable for Erin, who has been in virtual schooling since 2020. She’s had minimal opportunities to be around people in her age group, so her friendship with Willis has helped her to simply be a kid.

“It’s so amazing,” Julie said. “The whole team, but (Willis) specifically because he was so diligent about texting her back, really asking how she’s doing. The guys became her friends. They’re her people. If she wants to talk to someone, that’s who she talks to. It opened up such a different feeling for her to have people to talk to who weren’t (family). You want someone’s perspective other than your mom and dad.”

Johnson added, “Their relationship is unreal. (Willis) is a rock. It’s pretty cool for him to handle all the stuff that’s going on in the football world, the academic world, all the different pressures from it and to be able to balance that with being there for someone who needs it. It says a lot about him as a person and the way he’s been raised by his parents. Watching him interact with her, giving this young girl some joy, I think it’s awesome. It’s so cool, man.”

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Willis’ time at Liberty has come to an end. He’s been training for the draft in Atlanta, and his team commitments are about to skyrocket.

The one-on-one opportunities with ErinHope have been more infrequent, but the root of the interactions hasn’t changed. She attended Willis’ pro day, and they still communicate as regularly as his schedule permits. She recently FaceTimed him just to watch him play FIFA while he told her about his day.

Willis is a near certainty to be selected in the first round of this week’s draft, and ErinHope thinks that’s pretty cool.

It just won’t change her perception of Willis.

She’d still want to hear from him either way, whether he was an unheralded transfer student during his redshirt year or Liberty’s starting quarterback, whether he was alone in a restaurant or finishing dinner with Mike Tomlin, whether he’s the first quarterback taken in the draft or the last.

“It’s never about anything more,” Julie said, “than them just being friends.”

(Top photo courtesy of Julie Coleman)