Chris Hobbs, who led East Chapel Hill to the 1997 3-A state basketball championship, has died.

Details are still sketchy, but Hobbs lived in Durham, where he served as a collections specialist with the American Red Cross after his professional career ended. He was only 33 years old.

The news came as a shock to Hobbs’ high school coach, East Chapel Hill’s Ray Hartsfield, who remembers him as a local legend.

“I had a couple of coaches call me and said that Chris may have been one of the best high school players that came through North Carolina,” said Hartsfield. “I think that’s a great point. He was a tremendous high school player. He had a good career at Clemson, and then he got to play overseas. He took his talent as far as he could take it. He missed most of his senior year (at East because of a torn ACL), but for those three years, there weren’t many lights that shined like Chris’ did in North Carolina.”

Hobbs played under Larry Shyatt at Clemson from 2000 to 2004. He made the ACC All-Rookie team in 2001. He scored 961 career points with the Tigers and grabbed 679 rebounds, the 15th highest in school history.

In Chapel Hill, Hobbs was best known as the centerpiece behind East’s 3-A state championship, a title captured in storybook fashion. The Wildcats defeated Hickory 60-58 when Andy Jones hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer—at the Smith Center, to boot. Even more remarkably, it was the first boy’s basketball team ever at East Chapel Hill, still the only team in North Carolina history to win a state title in its first year.

Hartsfield says the 12 players who comprised that squad were close on and off the court.

“They really created a culture for our program,” said Hartsfield. “And Chris was the ringleader. He was a gladiator between the lines and he was a fun-loving big baby outside the lines. We would be at practice and my son would be there. I would tell Chris ‘Stop playing with Little Ray and come practice.’ He just liked to keep it going. We’ll miss him.”

After his career at Clemson ended, Hobbs played internationally in France, Argentina and Sweden.

Last February during a game against Person, Hartsfield arranged a reunion to honor the 1997 state championship team, which 12 players attended. When Hobbs was asked what it was like to return to his old gym, he said “It smells like game time.”