Ralph Wilson, better known as “Chopper” at the Street Parlor, just finished giving Liberty University football coach Hugh Freeze a shave and haircut. The 56-year-old barber wanted the coach to look especially good for what he insisted was the biggest day this town, best known as the home of television evangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., has seen in his lifetime.
Maybe ever.
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“It’s going to blow,” Chopper said late Monday afternoon. “MAAA-an, it’s going to blow!”
Chopper was talking about pro day at Liberty University, which, until Tuesday, barely drew a blip on the NFL radar. Instead of the typical eight to 10 scouts, barely enough to run the wide assortment of drills, 120 NFL coaches, scouts and front office personnel will be on campus.
Instead of having one or two players hopeful of being a late-round pick or an undrafted pickup, 19 will be on display.
All 32 NFL teams will be represented, but some more than others. The Carolina Panthers, who have the No. 6 overall pick and are looking for a quarterback, will be out in full force with general manager Scott Fitterer, head coach Matt Rhule, offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo and others, just as they were on Monday in Pittsburgh for quarterback Kenny Pickett.
ESPN and NFL Network will do live shows from the campus outlined by the Blue Ridge Mountains.
They’re will all here because of one player: senior quarterback Malik Willis, whose never-before-seen-talent in these parts has put Liberty on the NFL map in ways few, if any, ever imagined.
Even the city manager has called offering assistance.
“I don’t think I can quantify [what this day means],” Freeze said. “I just know it’s huge.”
‘This is monumental’
Barber Ralph Wilson, better known as “Chopper,’’ says Liberty’s Malik Willis is all anyone talks about in the Ninth Street Parlor. David Newton
The school has spent weeks preparing for the pro day, an event they barely invested a few days in the past. Chopper, who half-jokingly claims he looks like a combination of Magic Johnson and George Foreman, says it’s all people in the parlor have talked about since it became apparent Willis could be a first-round pick — maybe top 10 — in the April draft.
It reminds Liberty athletic director Ian McCaw of when Robert Griffin III (the No. 2 overall pick in 2012) had his pro day at Baylor when McCaw was the AD there. He called that the turning point of that program because of the exposure.
McCaw said Tuesday was an even bigger for Liberty, calling it a “once in a lifetime event,” like the Super Bowl coming to this sleepy town by the James River.
Griffin, now an analyst for ESPN, agreed. He reminded that Baylor was in a major conference and had a football history that Liberty doesn’t as an FBS Independent.
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RGIII never even heard of Liberty before McCaw came here in 2016, and even then, he didn’t pay it much attention before Willis arrived in 2019 as a transfer from Auburn.
“I thought Liberty was just some writing on the Statue of Liberty,” Griffin said with a laugh. “We’ve all come to know more about it because of Malik Willis. Now the entire NFL community, the entire world is going to know about it.”
Javon Hubbard, the NFL liaison for Liberty football, hopes so. He oversaw preparation of the facilities and planned every detail for the arrival of this “who’s who” group from the league.
Liberty has had only one first-round pick in its history — tight end Eric Green, 21st overall to Pittsburgh in 1990. Since then, no player has been picked higher than the fourth round, and only three players have been drafted at all during that time.
Fortunately for Hubbard, the facilities rival those of most major football programs, starting with a state-of-the-art indoor facility, where most of the drills were held. So that part wasn’t difficult.
The rest has been like drawing up a blueprint for a new house. He’s gone from having a few members of the football staff and the communications department putting on the event to having the entire athletic department at his disposal.
It’s all hands on deck. All other football-related activities for the day were canceled, even though the team is in the middle of spring practice.
Everyone wants to get the message out to those who never have been on campus that the brand of football and facilities here are better than perceived nationally.
That, in turn, could help convince more players with Willis’ talent to choose Liberty.
“This is monumental,” Hubbard said.
Perspective
In his barbershop, Chopper remembered vividly when coach Freeze sat in his leather chair in 2019 and talked about a kid he was bringing in who had attempted only 14 passes in 15 games at Auburn. He remembered Freeze saying the kid didn’t know how good he was.
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