re: Where were you when you found out about Wally Pontiff's death?

McDonalds in BR eating breakfast before some 4H thing we were going to

LINK

"an abnormality in his heart"

"died of natural causes and had no drugs in his system"

My family and the Pontiffs have known each other long before I was born. I had just finished up summer football workouts at Brother Martin and was walking to my car to head home when my dad had called me to tell me. I probably sat in my car for about 30 minutes crying/questioning everything.

Between the season ending at Rice and Wally's death, my dad had a major bypass surgery and was in ICU for about 10 days. One day, Mr. Wally and Wally had come in to see my dad and Wally and I had went and grabbed lunch while our dad's bs'ed. As a 15 year old, this meant so much to me.

Painting my parents house, heard it on the radio

Sitting at my computer, typing on TD, and looking for info on wether or not he was coming back for his senior season...

In the weight room at Tiger Stadium. Very sad, sobering moment. Felt like I had just seen him in around the weight room, and since I was the same age it was probably the first time in my life that I thought about my own mortality

July 24, 2002. Unfortunately, it was my birthday, so it's a reminder every year. I was in Houston on business. I didn't find out until that night. Back then, cell phones were much different with roaming charges and no texting. I went to an Astros game that night and decided to call home from a pay phone at the park. My wife answered the phone and the first thing she said was, "Did you hear about Wally?". I could tell by the tone of her voice something was wrong. I sat in the stands that night at Minute Maid park just completely numb, not even paying attention to the game.

I was at work in Amelia.

In the car with my dad on the way home from baseball camp or something. 31 was my favorite LSU player at that time; I was devastated. I think I recall the lsusports.net site crashing not long after the news broke.