Sounds and Silence
by: Will Triplett
12/18/2023
In times like this, I write.
Sometimes news comes along that is anticipated. You’ve had a myriad of time to process and deal with what’s inevitable, allowing the navigation of the grief process to become more manageable. When Dean Smith died in 2015 it was a surprise to no one, but I was able to drive from Charlotte to Chapel Hill for a day before catching a flight to Ireland the following morning. I spent the day walking around campus and wrote an article titled “A Walk To Remember” that documented all of my stops to reflect what Dean’s impact had meant to my life. I ended at his gravesite, not even yet adorned with a granite headstone, instead a small placard on a wooden stick with a picture defining humility, encapsulating the man in totality.
Just months earlier in 2015, when Tar Heel legend and sportscasting icon Stuart Scott passed, I used an article entitled “Flip It” to reminisce about that one time I met him at True Blue/Caledonia when I was shooting a behind the scenes documentary for Hootie and The Blowfish’s Monday After The Masters Golf Tournament, and how even though he was clearly weak and the day’s golf had onset an insurmountable amount of lethargy, he departed with an enthusiastic “Go Heels” before his golf cart evolved into a graceful silhouette over the South Carolina horizon. That moment of reflection provided needed peace as I knew wholeheartedly that even posthumously he was “cooler than the other side of the pillow.”
Today is different.
Eric Montross passed away last night surrounded by his loving family. It’s no surprise that the earliest social media reactions from Tar Heels nation are ones of profound shock and sadness. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen to Eric.
For those that follow the basketball program closely, we were made well aware of his diagnosis in March of this year, a mere 9 months ago. There’s the casual Carolina Basketball fan who may have remembered his on court efforts in the early 90s, culminating in a national title as one of the most unstoppable bigs in America. But for those of us who operate on a different playing field of passion, Eric entered our homes multiple times a week for the year’s basketball season. When Mick Mixon left for the Carolina Panthers in 2005 it was Eric (who was then introduced to us as “Big GRITS”) Montross who stepped up to the microphone. He called Heels games with the legend Woody Durham (another mid 2010s passing that we were more prepared for) until 2011 and has been alongside Jones Angell ever since.
Game nights, at least for a Heel like me, is a four hour process. My wife has learned not to get in the way of the routine unless there’s an emergency, starting with turning on the radio an hour before the game and listening to Dave Nathan’s perfectly delivered intro. No matter what else there is to deal with in that hour she and my kids know that we don’t talk when coach is talking…but it doesn’t stop there. For many years I hung on the expert analysis of Big GRITS, because he just had a way about him. The basketball knowledge and fervor was ever present, sure, but there was a kindness behind his voice that simply put you at ease. No matter the size of the game, including the biggest game of them all which came on a clear April night in New Orleans in 2022, Eric could strip things down in a way that led you to believe victory was possible, that we could light the Bell Tower on any given night.
And then there were his in game calls that consisted of such malleable analytics in real time that if you hadn’t watched him play basketball for four years at Carolina and eight years in the NBA you would think were his natural talent. He understood other teams better than anyone except for maybe Roy and Hubert, and sometimes maybe even more than Roy and Hubert. He understood our teams and didn’t shy away from calling out our weaknesses and pointing out what we’d been doing well versus what we hadn’t, highlighting those areas of improvement for a crystal clear picture of our paths to success. I’m not sure if he had a hand in those successes or not, but in his time as a Tar Heel Sports Network analyst the Heels won three national titles, went to five national championship games, and played in eight final fours. Not bad for seventeen years.
Unlike the aforementioned, I never actually met Eric. But I know people who did and many would say that for all the on the court and on the air success that he had, his greatest achievements existed outside of the game of college basketball. Starting very early into his pro career he was the ultimate philanthropist, starting his annual Eric Montross Father’s Day Basketball Camp in 1994. In the subsequent decades the camp has raised millions of dollars for the UNC Children’s Hospital. Over his post-basketball professional career he worked with the Pan-American Health Organization as a Vaccine Ambassador, providing necessary vaccines to children all over the world, specifically in developing countries.
One story that hits close to home is when a high school friend was ill with cancer at a far too young age, Eric visited him in the hospital. Jay was a bright light and ever the Tar Heel enthusiast and Eric always took the time out of his day to brighten up the lives of the sick. He gave so much joy in those moments to people of all ages with his vibrant personality and joy for meeting others. That has to be tiresome work to apply yourself to, inserting yourself directly into the throes of a perfect stranger’s grief, but it was work that Eric took very seriously and always did so with a smile on his face.
We have the Eric Montross lore. We have the “bloody Montross” game and we have his jersey in the rafters. We have the 1993 championship trophy, a year where he averaged 15.8 PPG and 7.6 RPG. We know that he was an All American in 1993 and 1994. We watched his successful NBA career, proud that he wore the Tar Heel badge the entire way. All of that will be talked about and remembered.
But there’s been a void all year in my four hours on game nights. Big GRITS stepped away this year to focus on his health. We were told he was “fighting cancer” and would be back soon. We…I believed that. I expected him back next year. I couldn’t wait.
It will be a somber night at 8 PM on Wednesday on the pregame show when Dave Nathan introduces the evening program. I expect we’ll hear from Jones and Adam and a host of others, I assume Hubert will be asked to discuss Eric’s impact. There will be a basketball game to play and we will watch as always, only wanting this one that much more, needing it not just for the 2023-2024 Heels but also for Eric and his family. It will be the type of game that transcends wins and losses but enters poetic justice territory, at no fault of the Oklahoma Sooners.
And regardless of the outcome it will be more present than ever that Eric is not there. For those four hours we will be incredibly aware of his absence, this time as an absolute, and it will hurt. It will hurt more than it has. And it will hurt for sometime.
Revered radio host Ira Glass once said “In radio, you have two tools: sound and silence.”
Thank you, Eric, for all of the sounds. They’ll never be forgotten.
And now in your silence, I hope you can at least hear the distant flicker of a radio, where one day soon Jones Angell says through a cracking voice “The Tar Heels have won the National Championship!”
And then…
“This one’s for you Big GRITS.”
