Party with a rock star: The Patrick Mahomes Experience took over KU Med on Tuesday

Patrick Mahomes stood in the doorway of a room in the University of Kansas Health System oncology unit, sheepishly grinning and peering through the TV cameras huddled around the hospital bed.

The Chiefs quarterback, who was so amped up before his first start at Arrowhead he had to be held back from making his entrance too soon, was a world away from that moment Tuesday afternoon.

He paused a few seconds, reached his hand in his pocket to grab a sharpie, then made his move.

Mahomes, followed by fellow quarterbacks Chad Henne and Chase Litton, entered the room grinning, walking around the cameras and boom mics to come to the foot of Craig Malsbury’s bed.

“How are you doing?” Mahomes asked Malsbury, grinning as he shook his hand and introduced himself. ”Nice to meet you. I’m Patrick.”

Everyone in Kansas City — heck, everyone in the NFL — wants a piece of Patrick Mahomes. He’s the great hope of the franchise, the chosen one with the golden arm that’s supposed to deliver a long-awaited Super Bowl to the tormented fan base. But Tuesday afternoon, the boy wonder took an hour to give pieces of himself to the patients, families, nurses and doctors — people who never asked for it, but who needed it most.

“(Their determination and fight) is stuff you can look up to and inspires you, because you know these people are laying it on the line every single day,” he said. “And it helps me knowing that I can go in, and just do what I have to do, playing good games, it helps pick up their spirits. Anything I can do.”

He and his fellow quarterbacks went door-to-door in unit 42, visiting patients like Marlsbury in cancer and hematology care.

“We appreciate you having us,” Mahomes said to Malsbury as he unfurled a red Chiefs flag. “We brought you this flag. I know you already have some gear, we brought you this flag, just (as) kind of a token for just all the hard work and determination that you have. We want to make sure that you know that we know what you’re going to do (in) getting through this.

“We’re going to hopefully sign it for you, if that’s OK with you.”

It was more than OK with Malsbury, who’s been in the hospital for a month battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia. As Mahomes bent down to sign the flag, he noticed the pile of Chiefs gear laid out on Malsbury’s bed. There were two jerseys, almost identical to the one Mahomes was wearing, along with two miniature helmets.

As Mahomes reached to pick up some of the memorabilia, he noticed Jeanna Ribeau, Malsbury’s mother-in-law, sitting nearby and greeted her.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life, so now I can die happy because I can go to a Super Bowl with the Chiefs in it,” the 30-year season-ticket holder and diehard Chiefs fan told Mahomes. “And I expect you to get way more Super Bowls than (Tom) Brady ever did.”

Mahomes laughed, “That’s the, hopefully, that’s the plan.”

A few beats later, Ribeau asked Mahomes to sign her Arrowhead tattoo. The quarterback obliged.

“I’m never going to wash my leg again,” Ribeau said.

When Mahomes and the quarterbacks left the room a few minutes later, Ribeau was still starstruck.

“I’m in heaven.” she said. “I love my son-in-law even more now because he got cancer just so I could meet Patrick Mahomes.”

It was a moment of much-needed levity in the middle of Malsbury’s fight with cancer, one that’s already required a round of chemotherapy and might include a bone-marrow transplant.

“I think it’s super exciting,” said Malsbury, a native of Oskaloosa, Kan. “I’m so glad they do this. I really am. That’s the whole thing. When I heard that, I was astounded.”

The semi-chaotic scene at KU Med, which included hundreds of staff members waiting to usher him out, was a microcosm of Mahomes-mania, which is becoming the talk of the NFL.

It reflected both the pulse of a region that has waited forever for a transformative figure like this and the unique appeal of a budding superstar who demonstrates sincerity and near-innocence amid the near-hysteria he is creating.

“It is a cool feeling just to be able to come in here and kind of lift their spirits a little bit,” he said. “But you can see the determination that they already had. So for us it puts it in perspective that even the little things that we do that we think are so little, just playing, like, football games, how much it means to them.”

Mahomes and Co. first visited the room of Shari Lyn Collins of Larned, Kan., who all but screamed when he entered: “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she said.

“I’m Patrick,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

With a smile, she said, “I already know who you are.”

After Mahomes introduced “my budd(ies) Chad and Chase” and they asked how she was, she said, “I’m feeling a lot better.”

Then Mahomes presented a Chiefs flag “for just being you and who you are” and, as he did in each room, asked permission to sign it.

So eager to please and be positive was Mahomes that when she reported it was her fourth time with cancer, he initially said, “That’s awesome” before audibling as quickly as he might adapt to an opposing defense.

“Awesome (about) your determination, for sure,” he said.

When he told her to keep fighting, she said, “You keep fighting, too. Get out there and throw (those) balls.”

Yes, we will, he said, adding, “We’ll keep going, and you keep going and get this thing right.”

She was still overwhelmed after they left.

“It just kind of gave me a jolt (for them to) take time out of their day to see how we are up here,” she said. “Because sometimes you might feel like you’re lost or left up here by yourself. But you’re really not.”

Later, Mahomes and his crew stopped by the room of a woman from St. Louis, who showed them pictures of her grandson, a budding linebacker.

“I can’t tell you how much this means for you guys to come and see us,” she said. “Thank you.”

While Mahomes was making personal connections with the patients on the fourth floor, a crowd of hospital employees was gathering below. They wanted to mimic the human tunnel at Arrowhead Stadium, the one Mahomes ran out of as a starter for the first time Sunday.

But as hundreds filled the hospital lobby, the scene looked less like the on-field tunnel at Arrowhead and more like the crowds that followed Tiger Woods to the 18th hole at East Lake last weekend.

As Mahomes and the rest of the Chiefs delegation descended the elevator into the mosh pit of hospital employees, electricity crackled through the crowd. Security guards stepped in to form Mahomes’ exit route as hands stretched toward the quarterback, some looking for a photo and some begging for high-fives.

Much like Ribeau, one woman who was dressed in business attire received a high-five from Mahomes and declared she was never washing her hand again.

When it was suggested to another who got a high-five but was dressed in hospital garb that it was too bad she would need to wash her hands, she jokingly shrugged off the thought — like about anyone around here might feel now when it comes to the magic of Mahomes’ touch.

This story was originally published September 25, 2018 at 6:57 PM.