University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: For Jason
June 22, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
The familiar sounds of bouncing basketballs, squeaking shoes and screeching whistles echoed through the Dean Smith Center Saturday morning. Lindy Clark watched from the concourse as hundreds of children and their fathers moved from basket to basket, working on lay-ups and defensive stances, pick and rolls and shooting motions at the Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp.
In the fall of 1993, Montross was a senior center on a Carolina basketball team coming off a national championship when he befriended Clark's son, 15 year-old Jason, at UNC Children's Hospital. “Jason, through a long battle with what ended up being terminal cancer, taught me a lot,” Montross said.
As a patient at UNC Children's Hospital, Jason was asked for his recommendations for a new facility. He wrote three pages. “We had both commented that you were kind of known as your room number, and that's tough,” Lindy Clark said. “Kids don't want to be a room number.”
“He gave a list of ways that the Children's Hospital could be changed to be better received by the kids who were treated there,” Montross said. “Instead of walls being white, making them colorful, having paintings on them, having areas that were just designated for kids. Making it a more kid-friendly environment.”
Jason Clark died in early 1994, but Montross made sure he wouldn't be forgotten. The first Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp was held the next summer, to benefit the Jason Clark Fund and UNC Children's. Last weekend, the camp celebrated its 21st year.
“We've always held camp on Father's Day, from the first camp in the summer of 1995,” Montross said. “It's been a nice match, with the dads coming here with their sons and daugthers, it's been an opportunity for them to come in and have time together. They get all day Friday and half a day Saturday, and they go home together for Father's Day on Sunday.”
On Saturday, while dozens of volunteers ringed the Smith Center floor, there was Brice Johnson boxing out a dad. There were father-child tandems trying to score on Joel James and Isaiah Hicks. There were Marcus Paige and Luke Maye coaching, Megan Buckland showing off here three-point form and Kenny Williams demonstrating taking a charge.
“It's kind of evolved into something that changes a little bit ever year,” Lindy Clark said, “but the basic thing is you've got Carolina players talking face to face with kids and dads.”
And they keep coming, year after year. John and Stephen Thompson attended the first camp, in 1995, when Stephen was nine years old. Satuday, the entire Thompson family were on hand as volunteers. “I think it was the purpose of the camp, the Children's Hospital fundraising and certainly the cause was something that you could feel good about,” John Thompson said. “At that time, there weren't too many things that a father and son could do together that were sort of unique.”
“It was always pretty special to come,” Stephen Thompson said. “Meeting Eric, you're kind of star-struck initially, but as we've been coming, I'd like to think that we're all friends now.”
Lindy Clark doesn't often get to the Smith Center floor. She and Lonnie Clark, Jason's father, prefer to help with the camp's food and chat with fellow volunteers on the concourse.
“It's bittersweet, because I want Jason down there,” she said, looking down at the court. Once, during Jason's hospital stay, the family visited during a basketball practice. “Dean Smith was down on the floor with the players, and he was in awe of Coach Smith,” Lindy remembered. “Coach Smith said 'Jason!' and I thought Jason was going to jump out of his seat. And he called him again, and he went, 'Yes?' and he said, 'Come on down!' He took him to his office and he was so kind to him. That was a once in a lifetime experience for him. For a 15 year-old, that was really cool.”
More than 20 years later, Jason Clark's legacy lives on at UNC Children's in the Jason Clark Teen Lounge and Game Room and on the colorful hospital walls. The Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp has raised more than $1 million, with all of the proceeds benefitting UNC Children's. And it's not just about a single weekend.
“One of the greatest and most rewarding component of this camp is watching these young kids go out and mobilize and be little philanthropists,” Montross said. “They're finding ways to raise money all throughout the year for the Children's Hospital, and they come back and tell me, and I just get chills thinking about all these little people out there working to help the other little people that are in the Children's Hospital.”
As she looked out at the basketball court, with hundreds of dads and children, and many of her friends volunteering, Lindy Clark considered her son's impact. “I'm trusting him with Jason's memory,” she said of Montross. “You don't want your child forgotten. Was it worth losing Jason? No, but I'm glad we're taking the worst thing that can happen and turning it around and trying to make something better.”
