Montross was also a baseball pitcher in high school and was drafted by the Chicago Cubs with the 1,547th pick overall in the 1994 MLB draft.[4]
College career
Montross was part of the UNC team that won the NCAA Championship against Michigan in 1993 and was named an All-American as a junior and senior. Montross' father and grandfather had played for Michigan.[5] His father Scott was a teammate of Cazzie Russell in the 1960s and his maternal grandfather John Townsend was an All-American in the 1930s.[6] In four seasons at UNC, Montross appeared in 139 games, averaging 11.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game.[7]
Montross spent two seasons with the Celtics before being traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 1996, in exchange for a 1997 first-round draft pick and the right to swap first-round draft picks in the 1996 NBA draft.[13][14]
In December 1997, Montross and Jerry Stackhouse were traded to the Detroit Pistons for Aaron McKie and Theo Ratliff.[18] During his tenure with the Pistons, Montross played for 167 games, starting 32 of them and averaging 1.9 points and 2.8 rebounds per game.[19][20]
Montross announced his retirement on August 26, 2003, due to a foot injury and was waived by the Raptors in February 2004.[22][23] During his career, Montross averaged 4.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, 0.6 blocks and 0.4 assists per game. He played in 465 games and started 288.[20]
Montross was known locally for his support for charitable causes, especially fundraising for the North Carolina Children's Hospital at UNC.[26] With the Pan American Health Organization, he co-founded an organization called Vaccine Ambassadors, which aims to distribute vaccines all over the world, especially to developing countries.[27] In 1994, partly in tribute to 16-year-old Jason Clark, a UNC cancer patient he had befriended, he started the Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp, an annual event that by 2010 had raised over one million dollars for the children's hospital.[25][28] He served on the board of the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation, an organization supporting care for young cancer patients at UNC.[26][29] He also worked for the Rams Club at UNC as a principal gifts fundraiser.[8]
Death
The Montross family said in a statement in late March 2023 that Montross had recently been diagnosed with cancer and would receive treatment at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.[10] He died later that year on December 17 at age 52.[30]
