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Thank you for supporting Eric and Laura's dream of honoring Jason Clark's memory.

About the Eric Montross Father’s Day Basketball Camp

In the fall of 1993, Eric Montross was a senior at the University of North Carolina and a member of UNC’s basketball team, which won the 1993 NCAA National Championship.

Already a routine visitor to pediatrics patients at N.C. Memorial Hospital on Carolina’s campus, Eric befriended Jason Clark, a 15-year old young cancer patient and avid Tar Heel fan.

The pair bonded while playing video games and talking basketball.

When their conversation turned to more serious topics like the newly planned children’s hospital, Jason wrote three pages of suggestions to make the facility more child/teen friendly.

When Jason lost his fight with cancer after a 9-month battle, Eric and Laura Montross alongside the Clark family, were inspired to see Jason’s vision a reality.

In the summer of 1995, Eric and Laura Montross, along with Jason’s family, started the Eric Montross Father’s Day Basketball Camp to honor Jason and support the new hospital.

The original goal of $100,000 to fund the Jason Clark Teen Room has now exceeded $1.7 million. The money raised supports projects that fall outside the budget of the state’s children’s hospital.

Camp Funds Have Supported:

  • The Jason Clark Teen Room (#1 priority on Jason’s list as a space to give teenagers a place to socialize and feel normal despite their diagnosis, without doctors and nurses)
  • Pediatric Infusion Suite, Pediatric Short Stay Unit and Pediatric Dialysis Center
  • Salary for an On-Staff Child Psychiatrist
  • Murals (not only creates a warm environment for patients, family, friends and staff, but a distraction for patients in treatment rooms)
  • Medical Simulation Mannequins for UNC’s Clinical Skills and Patient Simulation Center
  • High-tech Medical Equipment (High Performance Liquid Chromatography Machine and High Resolution Ultrasound Machine)
  • Be Loud! Sophie Foundation (an innovative program supporting adolescent and young adult cancer patients and their families at UNC Children’s)

The Camp Experience:

Camp is usually held the Friday and Saturday of Father’s Day weekend and provides a unique opportunity for dads and their 7-13-year-old children to share quality time together on the Roy Williams Court at the Smith Center.

Fathers learn coaching skills while they and their children practice, play and compete.

Camp also emphasizes the importance of helping others and planting the seeds of philanthropy, as all camp registrations benefit the Hospital.

This year, the Eric Montross Father’s Day Basketball Camp will be held June 21-22.