METAIRIE, La. -- Jarrius Robertson, the 15-year-old superfan of the New Orleans Saints, couldn't announce the team's third-round draft choice in Philadelphia as planned because he is finally receiving a long-awaited liver transplant back home.
"We finally got our hero," Robertson's father, Jordy, said in a nervous but excited Facebook video, asking for prayers from his son's growing fan base throughout the country.
Jarrius is expected to have surgery Saturday afternoon. According to a family friend, he was in good spirits, playing video games and "still hot" the Saints didn't select LSU safety Jamal Adams in the first round of the draft.
Robertson tweeted about his surgery on Saturday.
Today is the DAY! thx everybody for the support and prayers - God is good!
— Jarrius Robertson (@Jarrius) April 29, 2017
IT TAKES LIVES TO SAVE LIVES 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/iazOGnUpDW
Saints owners Tom and Gayle Benson called Jarrius to wish him well.
Jarrius, who signed a "contract" last year on "Good Morning America" to become an official "hype man" for the Saints, has become a larger-than-life figure around the team, handing out an award on the NFL Honors awards show with Sean Payton and Harry Connick Jr. earlier this year, among other appearances.
Robertson battles biliary atresia -- a chronic liver disease that affects his physical growth. He has been in and out of hospitals since receiving a liver transplant when he was 1. At one point, he was in a coma for an entire year.
"As a father and a parent, I prayed for this day, that this day would come," Robertson's father said in the Facebook video. "So I need everyone to lift us up in prayer, to fight with us, to pray with us and to stick by us. ... We finally got our liver and we're letting everybody know to keep praying.
"He's ready. ... I have a strong son, and we're going to keep going. We didn't sleep. We've been up all night. We've been waiting for this for 14 years. It starts a new life for us. ... We got our hero waiting."