CHARLOTTE—If you don’t mind, I’d like to remember.
Carolina played a basketball game Tuesday night, a frustrating and maddening game, and there is a complete breakdown of that loss to Florida available here. If that’s all the Tar Heel thoughts you need to have tonight, it’s completely understandable and I can’t say I blame you.
But Tuesday was also more than just a game. Tuesday was also the one-year mark since Eric Montross passed away after battling cancer for the better part of 2023. It is alternately unbelievable and so frighteningly real that it happened.
And of course on the one-year anniversary there would be a game. That is how he came into most of our lives, how we got to know him (That crew cut! That double-zero jersey! The bloody head against Duke!), and how almost none of us remember him. What a testament to Eric’s life that he moved from Indianapolis to Chapel Hill, played four years of basketball and won a national championship at one of the most storied programs in the country, played a decade in the NBA, and one year after his death very few people are talking about hook shots or slam dunks.
Some people don’t realize Jim Valvano was a basketball coach. And somehow I suspect that Eric Montross would be very happy ten years from now if people know him more as someone who raised money for good causes or constantly gave of his time and talents rather than as someone who had a good game against Michigan.
But he absolutely loved Carolina basketball. Didn’t love it the same way he loved his family, didn’t love it the same way he loved the quiet of a farm as the sun rose…but he loved it. So he would’ve been right there with us on Tuesday night, pounding on the desk as the Tar Heels mounted that second half comeback, clinching his fist in frustration after another turnover, and those offensive rebounds, well, you know what he would have said about those offensive rebounds.
What I have learned in these past 12 months is that grief sneaks up on you. You can be having a perfectly normal day in Lawrence, Kansas, preparing to watch Carolina take on the Jayhawks. You are wandering down Massachusetts Street, the Lawrence equivalent of Franklin Street. You ask about coffee, and the locals tell you to try Great Blue Heron Outdoors.
This is how Great Blue Heron Outdoors describes itself: “Great Blue Heron Outdoors is a unique combination of a fly shop, fishing tackle store, paddle sports dealer, and coffee shop.”
And that is Eric. If Great Blue Heron Outdoors’ mission statement had been “Create a store that Eric would love,” that is exactly the description they would have created. It will make sense to no one else why you are standing in the middle of a Kansas coffee shop/fishing store on a gameday with tears running down your face, but honestly he is just very, very missed in that moment.
Here is the gift, though. A smile eventually forces its way through the tears, because it’s not hard to imagine Eric’s sheer glee if he had discovered Great Blue Heron Outdoors. He would have told everyone about it and he would have described it to you in such a way that even you, who don’t like fishing or coffee, would have decided it sounded like the world’s most perfect retail establishment. And then suddenly you’re remembering the sheer joy he had on that trip to College Park when he discovered that particular Wendy’s had a chocolate Frosty (every Wendy’s has a chocolate Frosty), or his insanely long but heartfelt voice mail messages, or…
You understand. The good stuff. A year later, maybe that’s where we are, at least some of the time. A year ago in this same Spectrum Center it was really hard to laugh through the tears. I remember burrowing into our radio broadcast location two hours before last year’s game and not moving from there, just for fear of running into someone who might want to say something nice or give an unexpected hug.
Tuesday night was a little different. It was sad that Eric wasn’t there, wasn’t carefully typing out his open to the broadcast or talking about the rebounding battle off the air during the timeouts. But it’s fun to tell Eric stories. It’s not a substitute for him being here. But the stories make it briefly feel like he’s here.
On today’s Carolina Insider podcast, we spoke with Niklaus and Lucy Steiner, the parents of the same Sophie Steiner for whom Be Loud! Sophie is named. Maybe you have become familiar with Be Loud! in the past 12 months—many of the donations in Eric’s memory have helped fund their mission of providing more comprehensive care for teen and young adult cancer patients.
Niklaus and Lucy’s daughter died a decade ago. Regrettably, they have more practice at this than us. Lucy said something that might be helpful.
“I think it’s really important to remember someone’s character and to talk about them,” she said. “One of the hardest things when you lose somebody is that people don’t feel comfortable talking to you about that person. They’re worried you’re going to be sad or they will bring up something that makes you feel worse. But we love to talk about Sophie. She was an incredible human being and any chance we get to talk about her is a pleasure.”
So I’m going to keep telling that Frosty story, if you don’t mind. Because the Steiners are right—it’s a pleasure.
In some ways, one year later feels very much like one year ago. It still seems completely impossible that Eric Montross is not here. It doesn’t seem reasonable that the world keeps moving and he isn’t in it. Sometimes last December 17 feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels much too long ago.
There are obvious ways to remember him, like the 100 double-zero pins the Rams Club created or the incredible 00 Montross socks produced by the Koury family that was so dear to him (Eric loved the Koury family, but I want to tell you something else—the big man loved his socks, too, and the 00 Montross socks are the absolute pinnacle of sock manufacturing in the United States of America. Eric, a man who never bragged but who had a deep affinity for quality socks, would have bragged on these endlessly).
It also feels like my job to tell you about the things that mattered to him, from big things like getting out the word about Be Loud! Sophie to little things—how could such a big man be so good at the little things?—like asking someone’s name when they approach for a quick photo.
I will tell you a secret: every time that happens, every time I meet a Tar Heel fan and ask their name, I’m doing that because of Eric. Because he reflexively did it every time, and because it so clearly made a difference in the Carolina experiences of so many people, and emulating him is something that makes it feel more like he’s here. He never once had to think about doing that. I have to think about it every time, but thinking about it means I’m thinking about him.
The games keep going and I know that we must, too. Most days I keep all of this to myself. But on this day above all the others, I just want to write down that it happened.
Eric Scott Montross was here. He was a beloved family man and an incredible dad. He was one of the best players to ever play for North Carolina. He made a difference in the lives of countless individuals in and around Chapel Hill, both with his work in the spotlight and especially behind the scenes. He was a fiercely loyal friend and coffee aficionado and Tar Heel.
And he was—is—loved. And right now, thanks to you, he’s remembered.
