When I walked into my grandfather’s hospital room, Dale Brown was already there. I had left him at basketball practice, gone back to the Tiger Rag office to file my story and then headed to Our Lady of the Lake. LSU’s basketball coach had gotten there before me, and my PawPaw was so happy.

It was February 1991. The players were shooting free throws in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, and I was sitting in the stands watching. Brown was nearby, talking with his assistants. There was another SEC game coming, and I was there to cover his team, but my mind was at the hospital.

My grandfather, R.G. Larkin, had been there about a week. He was ill, wasn’t doing well and had become depressed. Brown must have noticed something in my expression because he looked over and asked how I was doing.

I told him I was OK, just thinking about my PawPaw. He asked if my grandfather was OK, and I could tell he wanted to know. We talked for a while. Brown asked my grandfather’s name and which hospital he was in. I told him, then steered the conversation back to basketball. I didn’t want to keep thinking about how sick PawPaw was.

After practice, I drove to our office off Perkins Road and filed my story. Then I went to see my grandfather. I had asked Brown for nothing beyond the few minutes we spent talking in the stands. Yet when I reached the hospital room, there he was, visiting with PawPaw.

My grandfather died on September 3, 1991. But he died a man who was no longer depressed, who felt seen and dignified. Brown’s visit changed his perspective and demeanor for the rest of his life. More than 35 years later, I still remember walking into that room and seeing what his presence had done.

That memory came back Friday with the news that Brown had died at 90. There will be plenty written about his basketball career, and there should be. His teams gave LSU fans seasons they still talk about, players they still love and nights in the Assembly Center they will never forget. I have those memories, too. But when I think of Dale Brown, I see my grandfather.

Other people were remembering their own encounters with him Friday. An LSU fan posting as LSUPIMP2003 replied to my post on X with a message that began, “This one hurts, Todd.”

The fan wrote about how good Brown had been to people, including him personally, and how little it mattered whether someone could do anything for Brown in return. “He’d help you or dispense some words of encouragement,” he wrote. “He was just so decent.”

Another reader, posting as Doc Peter Of Doc Peter Wins, offered a brief farewell: “RIP ‘Preacher Man’ you will be greatly missed.”

I recognized Brown in both responses. He spoke often about helping people, about faith and the responsibility we have to one another. In February 1991, I watched him follow through on those beliefs after a conversation that could easily have ended when we returned to discussing the next game.

I returned to Louisiana and Tiger Rag in August 2022 after 28 years away. After that, it wasn’t uncommon for my phone to ring sometime after 11 p.m. Always after 11. It would be Coach Brown, and he would just want to talk.

I was back home, working again at the publication I had been writing for when he visited my grandfather. Decades had passed, and now there was his voice on the phone late at night, making time for another conversation.

In March 2023, while Tiger Rag was covering the controversy over the naming of Dale Brown Court, I told author Trent Angers about my grandfather. Trent forwarded the story to Brown, who emailed me at 1:32 the next morning. Those hours were familiar by then.

“Todd, it pleases me that I brought some comfort to your grandfather,” he wrote. “Thanks for sharing this with Trent. Blessings to you.”

I wrote back that morning and tried to explain the full reach of what he had done. His kindness had made my grandfather’s life better. It had also changed mine. I called it “love demonstrated,” because that was what I had witnessed.

We can spend a lifetime hearing about compassion. Seeing someone act on it, especially when someone you love is hurting, teaches you something you carry. Brown had listened closely enough to get my grandfather’s name and hospital, then made time to go. I never forgot it.

Later that morning, he asked whether my grandfather had lived on Rodney Drive. I told him PawPaw and my grandmother had lived on Vienna Drive in Homewood, between Essen and Perkins. More than three decades after that hospital visit, Brown was still asking about him.

His final response began, “God put us all on this earth to help one another.”

Trent included my grandfather’s story in full detail in his book, Dale Brown Court: …and the Battle for Human Dignity. I am grateful he preserved it. The title speaks directly to what Brown gave my PawPaw during those final months. He was sick and discouraged, and Brown made him feel that he mattered.

I was a young reporter sitting in the stands that February, trying to pay attention to free throws while worrying about my grandfather. Brown noticed and listened. When practice ended, I went back to work, and he went to the hospital. The happiness he brought into that room stayed with my PawPaw until September. The example has stayed with me ever since.

Now I think about those late phone calls and the way he always began.

“I didn’t wake you, did I Todd?”

Yes, Coach, you woke me. Really awoke me. But I wasn’t asleep yet.