Alabama football’s new offensive line coach Eric Wolford and his son Stone frequently play the question game.

There are no right or wrong answers. Just different outcomes. Stone knows this well. One answer prompts tickling or roughhousing. The other doesn’t.

The game usually goes something like this. 

“Hey Stone,” Eric says. “Who’s your favorite?” 

Even if Stone wants to say "mommy," he knows better. That’s a quick way to get tickled. 

“Who’s nice to you?” 

“Who do you want to hang out with?” 

Sometimes Stone likes to push his luck, though. Aware of the consequences, he changes his answers.

Cue the tickling and roughhousing as they laugh. 

“It’s Wolf’s way of interacting with him,” said Melinda Wolford, Eric’s wife and Stone’s mom, “because it’s difficult to figure out how to have a give-and-take conversation or relationship with a kid that doesn’t have the skills that you are accustomed to in a give-and-take relationship.”

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Stone has Cardio-Facio-Cutaneous (CFC) syndrome, a genetic condition that may affect between 300 to 3,000 people worldwide, according to the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center. 

Doctors told Eric and Melinda that Stone’s life expectancy would be between 4 and 14. Today, Stone is 16.

Those numbers have changed Eric’s outlook as a person and football coach. 

Eric was coaching Arizona's offensive line in the mid-2000s when he would watch broadcaster Stone Phillips on TV. 

“I just loved that name,” Eric told The Tuscaloosa News. “Everybody always thought it was after ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, the wrestler, but it wasn’t.”

At least not for Eric. Melinda’s Ph.D. is in school psychology with a minor/specialty in neuropsychology. She had a patient once who loved the wrestler. That was one of the reasons she liked the name.

Eric and Melinda welcomed their Stone on Nov. 26, 2005.

“My wife always jokes around, ‘We named him Stone, but we didn’t know he was going to rock our world,’” Eric said.

They realized something was different when they took him home from the hospital. They struggled to get Stone to eat. When he did, he couldn’t absorb some of the nutrients. He kept losing weight.

Other worrisome signs appeared. Stone didn’t track properly with his eyes. He was in constant pain. He didn’t sleep. He vomited 18 times a day.  

“I don’t think words can describe it,” Eric said. “We had a couple scares a couple times where he would be so dehydrated that he was probably close to not being around.”

The Wolfords started visiting doctors throughout Arizona. None provided the answer they needed. Then Eric took the Illinois offensive line job in 2007, and the search for a diagnosis for Stone continued there.

Most medical experts diagnosed only individual issues that were part of CFC, including his vision and hearing impairments, gastrointestinal issues and heart condition. The full picture, the full diagnosis, was harder to recognize because of its rarity.

One doctor referred the Wolfords to another. Then another. There were 41 in total.

“Do you know how long it takes to go to 41 doctors?” Eric said. “And wait? And sleepless nights? No one should have to go through that.”

Eric believes God gave him Stone for a reason, though.

Eric was moving up in the football world. Before Arizona, where he worked from 2004-06, Wolford had coached offensive lines at North Texas, Houston, South Florida and Emporia State. He started as a graduate assistant in 1995 at his alma mater, Kansas State. 

“As a young coach, I was having a lot of success,” Eric said. “Pretty confident in myself.”

He had reason to be. Making it out of his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, was no small feat. Not everyone did. 

“I think that Youngstown grit, it’s tough,” said Linda Heater, Eric’s sister. “Tough environment. Not a lot of opportunities.”

Their dad Tim Wolford was a plant supervisor at a steel mill, working long hours with off shifts, midnights and weekends. He urged Eric, Linda and their brother Mark to work hard and go to college to find a better life.

“I think I was definitely all about chasing my dreams,” Eric said. “Wanting to become the best O-line coach in football. Wanting to become a head coach. Wanting to become the best recruiter. Those type of things. It was more self-centered, goal-attaining type things.”

The Wolfords had dreams, but they also had nightmares.

Melinda remembers one to this day. Stone was falling out the window, so she grabbed his hand. She tried to hold on, but he kept slipping from her grip.

The fear of losing him has been constant throughout Stone’s 16 years, but the Wolfords didn’t know the exact threat until he was 2. 

A pediatric cardiologist in Illinois encouraged them to get one more genetic test. Melinda was reluctant. The previous three had been unsuccessful. Why would this be any different?

The fourth illuminated the answer.

“I was immediately relieved and horrified at the same time,” Melinda said.

Having a diagnosis didn’t fix Stone’s condition, but it gave it a name. 

“And there would be hope moving forward,” Melinda said.

The work only continued from there. Melinda had already done plenty of research on different ways to help Stone. She sought vision, speech, occupational and physical therapists, plus more. But the most impactful game-changer was homemade. Melinda concocted a shake for Stone to get the nutrients in a way that he could consume. Included in the mixture was baby food, PediaSure and powdered nutrient supplements.

He still drinks a similar smoothie. The Wolfords keep them well stocked. Stone can grab one from the fridge whenever he needs.

“We adjusted our life around his needs,” Melinda said.

Depth perception is another challenge. Stone has had falls, but he has minimized them by feeling his way around. He has a guide dog named Bear to help at home. His favorite pet, however, is Yeti, a 25-pound Bengal cat. Yeti will try to bite or claw Eric, but Stone can hold the cat by one leg and nothing happens. He loves cats. Garfield is one of his favorite shows. He watches on his phone or iPad rather than the TV because he can hold those devices close to see it.

Stone loves to dance around the house, spinning and twirling to songs from his parents’ era.

Eric’s music taste has extended to his son. Journey, Poison and Queen are among the artists whose music Stone sings. 

His favorite song comes from much earlier than the 1980s, though. It’s "The Star-Spangled Banner." 

“He sings it with all of his heart before every game,” Melinda said. “(You) can’t understand a word.”

Stone has been attending football games most of his life. Even if weather prevented him from going, he watched his dad’s teams from home on TV. 

“Don’t even think about changing the channel,” Heater said. “He is watching what his dad is doing.”

Stone tracks each of his dad’s former teams on ESPN and likes to show people the scores, from the San Francisco 49ers and South Carolina Gamecocks to Youngstown State, where Eric was head coach. He was most recently Kentucky's offensive line coach. 

Now, Stone has moved to Tuscaloosa with his family, and he's already saying “Roll Tide.”

“I want to make Stone proud in his own way,” Eric said. “When I was at the 49ers and we would lose some games, man he was having some hard days, because he gets upset when we lose.” 

Stone also loves to throw the football. Sometimes, he likes to pretend he is running and wants Eric to tackle him. 

Eric brings Stone around the office and his players as much as he can. He was a guest at a recent O-line dinner where Stone met his dad’s new Alabama players.

“When they go out and play, there’s a void there that’s filled as far as getting the chance to see a young man play the game of football,” Eric said. “Most men that played football, when they have their first son, I’m sure they want him to play football. That’s just who we are and the way we are wired. And not having that opportunity, working with my players, seeing them go out and have success, it kind of fills that void that I have at home with Stone.”

Helping Stone has also helped Eric in his coaching. 

Stone has always required an individualized approach to meet his needs. One-size-fits-all doesn’t necessarily work for athletes either. Maybe one player has different nutritional needs. Another could have a different learning style. 

He still wants to be the best coach he can be, like early in his career, but he has added more goals. He aims to be the best husband, dad, brother and uncle, too.

“They’re all there,” Eric said. “That’s just something that I want to do. I want to help people and not expect anything in return.”

Stone’s head was misshaped early, so the Wolfords needed to get him a helmet to form it. 

The insurance company wouldn’t cover it.

“I just told the guy, ‘That’s fine,” Eric said. “‘You do your insurance deal. I’m going to make a difference about this.’”

These were the beginnings of No Stone Unturned.

The Wolfords started the foundation in 2008 to help kids with any disability get customized and holistic care. As part of that, the foundation’s therapeutic learning center was founded in 2012 as a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization in Manhattan, Kansas, where Eric went to school.

The Wolfords endeavored to create a place they could have gone when they lacked answers about Stone. 

The center, with a variety of therapists on site, completed 22,724 sessions in 2021, Eric said. But 213 kids fill the waiting list, so the foundation is in the process of launching a capital campaign to help build a 24,000-square-foot facility, moving away from the current 10,000-square-foot building the foundation is renting.

The Wolfords want to eliminate the waiting list and eventually create more centers.

“There’s no better feeling than helping someone,” Eric said, “helping a family with their son and getting them back on track or getting them answers or getting them the therapies that they need.”

Finding those for Stone has helped him live to 16. In the process, Eric has gained perspective.

“Every day is a win,” Eric said. “I win every day. My wife and I, we win every day. Wake up, he’s up, yelling about some bottles not being whatever, or yelling at the cat.”

Or laughing as Stone plays the question game with his dad.

“Stone’s with me,” Eric said. “That’s my best friend.”

Nick Kelly covers Alabama football and men's basketball for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter: @_NickKelly