University of North Carolina Athletics
Jason's Gift: Montross Camp Thrives in Chapel Hill
May 22, 2003 | Men's Basketball
March 15, 2005
Editor's note: The original version of this story ran in the May 2003 issue of Tar Heel Monthly.
By Adam Lucas
Every player has their own pregame ritual. Some listen to music, some study, some even take a nap.
In 1994, however, Eric Montross had what might have been the most difficult pregame ceremony of his life. Coming off a 13-point home victory over Virginia on Saturday, February 19, the Tar Heels were scheduled to fly to Notre Dame on Monday, February 21 for a nonconference game to be played on Feb. 23. The plane was to leave in the evening so that players could attend class that day.
Montross had other responsibilities. He had befriended a 15-year-old cancer patient at UNC Children's Hospital named Jason Clark, and after nine months of battling, Clark had taken a severe turn for the worse. Doctors knew it was a matter of hours, not months or years.
Each time Clark and his family had gone back and forth from their home in Durham to the hospital, they had carried along a huge red balloon that had been given to Jason by a friend. Jason's plan was to release the balloon on the day of his last chemotherapy, when he had finally beaten the cancer and would no longer need it.
That Monday morning, just hours before he was to board the plane for South Bend, Montross visited his friend for the last time. After visiting with Jason in his hospital room, Eric Montross and his then girlfriend and now wife, Laura, walked outside of the hospital, looked up into a winter Chapel Hill sky, and let Jason's red balloon float toward the heavens.
Ten months earlier, Jason Clark was in the same position as a lot of 14-year-old boys in the Triangle area--sitting with rapt attention in front of his television set watching Carolina dispatch Michigan 77-71 in the national championship game.
"You know how some people have certain spots they have to sit during a big game?" says Jason's mother, Lindy. "I was not allowed to walk through the room during that game, because every time I did something bad would happen. He went through the house yelling and screaming when Carolina won. He wanted to go downtown, but he was a little too young. He was the happiest child on the face of the earth."
It was probably that happiness that helped bond red-headed, blue-eyed Jason Clark to Eric Montross. The big seven-footer is an intimidating presence, his familiar crew cut now reduced to a virtually shaved head on top of a chiseled 270 pounds.
But his personality is far from intimidating, and children have a way of picking up on a person's personality. He has a quiet, quick wit that can take you by surprise and doesn't mind delivering a self-deprecating barb. He measures his words, not in a way that makes him seem reserved, but in a way that makes you believe that he has fully thought through the impact of each of his syllables.
"I've been blessed with this ability to play basketball, and along with it comes the chance to walk into a room full of children and have them give me their attention," Montross says. "Number one, I'm seven feet tall. And number two, I play pro basketball, so that is pretty cool to them. When I was at Carolina, of course all the local kids knew who you were. Jason used to give me scouting reports, and I'll be darned if he wasn't on the money most of the time."
When Montross first met Jason, he sat by the boy's hospital bed and chatted about basketball. And then he did something most people wouldn't do: he handed Jason his home phone number and said, "You better call me."
"We're not going to call him," Lindy Clark told her son. "That's not something you do. You don't just call somebody."
A few days later, the Clarks' phone rang. A booming voice on the other end said, "Hey, why haven't you called me?"
It was Eric Montross.
These days, Jason Clark's impact can be seen all over the North Carolina Children's Hospital. It's evident in the Jason Clark Teen Lounge, where patients can go to spend a few minutes with other kids and get away from doctors, nurses and needles. It's evident in the way the rooms are identified--not by numbers, because Jason said that kids didn't want to just be a number, but by animals.
Many of the improvements to the hospital, which recently moved into a new facility, were funded by proceeds from Montross' annual basketball camp, which is held each Father's Day weekend in the Smith Center. Just before he died, Jason was asked what would help make the hospital more child-friendly. He responded with three pages of suggestions, which the camp has worked to implement over the past nine years.
There's a catch, though. This isn't your usual basketball camp.
It's a father-and-child basketball camp, where fathers bring their sons and daughters for nearly two full days of basketball action. Montross started the event in 1995 after his first year in the NBA.
"It's funny how your life experiences play into the decisions that you make," says the starting center on Carolina's 1993 championship team. "I've got a seven-year-old (Andrew) and five-year-old (Sarah) now, and they're at an age where we've been very blessed with their health. And now I know the love a parent has for their child and the emotions that must rage through a parent's body when they have a child who is very ill or terminally ill. That just reinforces our decision to do whatever we can for the children's hospital."
That includes bringing together a virtual who's who of Tar Heel hoops for his camp. Jerry Stackhouse stopped by, as did Shammond Williams. Vince Carter has been a participant, as have Donald Williams, Dean Smith and Roy Williams. Camp begins on Friday, June 17, and lasts through Saturday afternoon, with one of the highlights being a Friday evening ice cream party and question-and-answer session with Montross.
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Sometimes, camp organizers even give out prizes to campers who can correctly answer basketball-related trivia questions.
"The toughest question is usually, 'How many teams has Eric played for?'" Montross says with a hearty laugh. "If anyone can get that one, we bring out the whole banquet table full of prizes."
A confidential tip for this year's campers: the answer is six.
"The first year of camp was very bittersweet," says Lindy Clark, who along with her family (her daughter, Lauren Cooper, designed this year's camp t-shirt) remains actively involved in the camp. "I would take groups of kids down in the elevator at the Smith Center, get back in the elevator, and cry all the way back up. And then when you're on the floor of the Dean Dome and you look out and see all the Carolina blue and looking at the shirts up in the rafters, it will take your breath away. I was standing at center court and boo-hooing. I kept thinking, 'Jason should be here, not me.'"
Like the Children's Hospital, the Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp was shaped by Jason Clark. Jason was a terrific chef and loved food. In his honor, campers don't eat the typical basketball camp fare of a sticky sandwich and some juice in a box. Instead, they have fully catered meals by area sponsors.
Registration for the camp is limited to approximately 125 enrollees, also because of Jason's experiences. "Jason went to a lot of basketball camps," Lindy says. "But usually there were 500 kids and you usually saw the counselors from a distance. We didn't want this camp to be that way."
Last year, the current players put on a crowd-pleasing dunk contest that excited the fathers almost as much as their children. David Noel is the early favorite this year, but only if he follows the sage advice of one of the original Carolina high-flyers--Montross.
"I don't think anybody can jump as high as I did when I was in school," the big man says with a smile. "I had to give Vince lessons up in Toronto. You know the dunk where he stuck his arm in the rim and hung there? I don't think I have to tell you that that one was mine originally."
With his NBA career completed, Montross and his family have moved back to Chapel Hill. That gave him more opportunity to enjoy one of his favorite hobbies, fishing, and contribute to the Tar Heel Sports Network pre- and post-game radio shows.
It's also enabled him to have even more direct oversight of the camp and the way it impacts the Children's Hospital. He doesn't brag about his championship ring, doesn't boast about his jersey hanging in the Smith Center rafters. He never mentions the NBA unless specifically asked about it.
But ask him about his camp, and the pride begins to peek through.
"One of the great things about this camp is that the dads or the kids don't have to be great basketball players," he says. "They just have to think it would be cool to come down to the Smith Center and shoot hoops with some of the Carolina players."
At Jason Clark's funeral in Durham, family members released a group of Carolina Blue balloons. They soared into the air, hesitated, and then took an abrupt turn--and floated in the direction of Chapel Hill.
For more information about how you can support the camp, click here.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
