In that moment, much as he towered over me, Eric Montross seemed almost like a little boy, one who wanted to make clear how much he loved and admired his father.

This happened long ago, not long after Montross broke many Hoosier hearts by announcing he would play his college basketball at the University of North Carolina—not Indiana University.

Already 7’0” as an adolescent, he had been a dominating presence on the state’s high school hardcourts, leading Lawrence North to a state championship when he was a junior.

I remember running into then Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh at the Statehouse during the state finals. Bayh had performed some ceremonial role, then stuck around to watch one of Lawrence North’s games. He marveled at Montross’s play.

“He’s something,” the governor said. “Like a man among boys.”

I encountered Montross later, during the summer after he graduated from high school.

I was doing triathlons then. After I’d crossed the finish line at one in Shelbyville and was gulping down some water, I heard this series of pounding sounds behind me, almost as if someone was hammering the road.

I looked back and saw young Montross, looking big enough to blot out the sun, sprinting toward the finish.

I told an editor at the paper where I worked that I’d seen the young basketball phenom competing in a tri. The editor assigned me to do a story.

So, I spent some time with Eric and his family.

I’d assumed that he was doing the triathlons to stay in shape during the off-season.

But that wasn’t the case. He competed in the tris so he and his dad, Scott Montross, could share a father-son activity.

They trained together. They logged the laps in the pool, pedaled the miles on the bikes and ran through the neighborhood around their home side by side.

They even competed in tandem, starting with Scott’s older group, even though that put Eric five minutes behind his age group before the race even started. They stayed close to each other during the open-water swims and rode at each other’s side during the bike portion.

Only during the run did they separate.

Scott joked that he’d let his son take off then so that he’d be sure to have a cup of water waiting for his father at the end.

During the time I was with them, father and son bantered easily and often.

Eric joked that, during the run, he couldn’t move more than a few yards without some other competitor saying, “Carolina?”

To which Eric would say, “Yeah, Carolina.”

He also teased his father about holding him back during the races, saying that he stayed close to his dad to make sure that Scott didn’t collapse or have some other mishap.

Scott responded by saying that Eric once had become confused on the bike leg and would have taken a wrong turn if Scott hadn’t corrected him. He said he kept Eric near him so his son wouldn’t get lost.

As night fell, it was time for me to leave.

Both father and son started to walk me to my car.

Eric, though, asked his dad to hang back so that he could talk with me privately.

Standing out in the driveway by my car, Eric loomed like a tall tree over my 6’1.” He put his hand on my shoulder and, whispering, asked me to make the story all about his dad—about how his father always had supported him and his sister, always guided them.

He did the triathlons, he said, because he treasured the time with his father.

As he talked, I saw that this huge young man also had been a boy, one who needed, as all boys do, guidance as he faced a great and often scary world.

I never spent any time with Eric Montross after that.

Eric Montross died a few days ago after a hard battle with cancer. He was 52.

He leaves behind a wife and three children, along with a birth family and friends who miss and mourn him. He became a pillar of the college basketball world, one whose name was a byword for integrity and loyalty.

I think of him now, though, as he appeared all those years ago when he put his hand on my shoulder and offered a heartfelt tribute to his father.

May he rest in peace.