My son, Justin, was in the second week of a medically-induced coma on the Pediatric Intensive Care unit of OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital when Dennis Erickson showed up.
Erickson then was Oregon State's head football coach and in the midst of what would be the Beavers' best season in at least the past 75 years, maybe ever.
I didn't really know Erickson. He wasn't a friend. We had a distant, professional relationship. He came unannounced and unanticipated, with no accompanying entourage, bearing only a football and words of comfort and hope.
He stayed perhaps 20 minutes during a point in the season when every second of his life was important.