“Amazing,” Blanks said. “It really is.”

To so many who knew him, this was quintessential Blanks, joyful and overflowing with gratitude. The same enthusiasm that compelled Texas fans in 1990 to “Dance with Lance” bled into everything Blanks did, whether he was putting a young Spurs draft prospect named Tony Parker through a one-on-one workout, or broadcasting games on TV, or helping raise two daughters while caring for his long-ailing dad, a pioneer in the integration of college football.

It’s also what made Thursday’s news so devastating. Blanks family issued a statement, released by the NBA, saying he died Wednesday at age 56 in Dallas. No cause of death was given.

Beloved by countless people throughout basketball — multiple generations of Texas coaches and players, front-office cohorts from his stints with the Spurs, Cavaliers, Suns and Clippers, coworkers at ESPN and the Longhorn Network, and dozens of pro players he scouted along the way – Blanks was, in the words of NBA head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, “a light for all those who knew him.”

“His energy, his personality, his approach were all infectious,” said Spurs CEO R.C. Buford, who went on multiple international scouting trips with Blanks and whose kids became lifelong friends with Blanks’ daughters.”It was always incredible to sit back and watch the way he impacted people.”

As a player, Blanks spent only three seasons in the NBA, including two with Dumars as a teammate on the Pistons from 1990-’92. But in 2000, he started with an entry-level job editing video with the Spurs, and impressed Buford and coach Gregg Popovich enough to work his way up to director of scouting.

One day in 2001, the Spurs needed someone to help evaluate a skinny French teenager who was in town for a draft workout. According to legend, Blanks put on a pair of shorts, played the kid one-on-one, and wore Parker out so badly that the team wondered if he’d ever make it.

“Lance was so competitive, he came out with something to prove,” Buford said. “He was looking for a contract.”

But Blanks also recognized the young future Hall of Famer would be special, and his eye for talent and the nuances of the game kept paying dividends for him. When the Spurs TV broadcast team got caught shorthanded during the 2004-’05 season, Blanks filled in as a color commentator, and proved to be a natural. He might have stuck with it if Danny Ferry, a former Spur who’d become the general manager in Cleveland, hadn’t hired Blanks to be the assistant GM of a franchise bound for the 2007 Finals.

Blanks went on to spend three years as the Suns’ general manager, and was working as a scout for the Clippers at the time of his death.

In between, he became a regular contributor to Texas basketball broadcasts on the Longhorn Network, bringing him back to the program where he became a delightful NCAA tournament sensation.

As the “B” in the Longhorns’ vaunted “BMW” backcourt that also featured Travis Mays and Joey Wright, Blanks’ shooting touch and swaggering bravado helped carry coach Tom Penders’ 1989-’90 Runnin’ Horns to the Elite Eight. After flipping the ball over his head for a layup during the Sweet 16 victory against Xavier, he stood on the baseline at Dallas’ Reunion Arena and unleashed an arm-waving, hip-thrusting jig that prompted an industrious Austin businessman to print up “Dance With Lance” t-shirts overnight.

They became a huge seller at the University Co-op bookstore, and when Blanks was reminded of that hysteria in March, he swore he never planned any of it.

“It was all spontaneous,” Blanks said. “The sun, the moon, the earth, everything just all lined up. Like an eclipse.”

With Blanks, though, things often had a way of just lining up for everyone around him. On Thursday, Penders recalled the way other players gravitated to his star shooting guard, whether it was during spirited practice sessions or rollicking back-of-the-bus debates on road trips back from Lubbock or Waco. A few years ago, Blanks hosted a party for dozens of former UT players at his Austin home, and Penders said he was struck by how even those Longhorns who arrived at UT long after Blanks left clearly adored him.

“He’s one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known,” Penders said. “No conversation ever ended without him saying, ‘I love you.'”

Before attending Texas, Blanks spent two seasons at Virginia after a decorated high school career at McCullough (now The Woodlands). He was born in Del Rio, where his father, Sid Blanks, had been a star high-school athlete before attending Texas A&I and becoming the first Black football player to receive a scholarship at any integrated college in the state.

The elder Blanks, who the family called “Big Sid,” went on to play for the Houston Oilers in the American Football League. He died in December 2021 after a two-decade battle with Parkinson’s disease.

In 2018, Blanks and his oldest daughter, Riley Blanks Reed, gave an interview with Austin radio station KUT in which they talked about “Big Sid’s” ordeal. During that segment, Reed spoke with awe about how Blanks made scouting trips from California to Cuba to China but somehow never neglected his time with his daughters or his father.

“You’re the best caretaker I’ve ever met in my life,” Reed told him on KUT.

“Maybe I have some sense of duty, as a person, to feel like I have this obligation,” Blanks said. “I’m just fighting with (Big Sid), if you will, to be that strong post to lean on. Because I know it’s a daily grind. He gets up fighting every day and I feel like I’m fighting with him. … He did something (in college) that required a lot of courage at the time. I feel a part of that when I’m caretaking for my dad.”

Last year, after his father’s passing, Blanks went on an NBA “Basketball Without Borders” trip to Africa with Rodney Terry, a longtime Texas assistant with whom he’d developed a close bond. When Terry took over as the Longhorns’ interim coach following the arrest and firing of Chris Beard, Blanks served as a confidant. And although he said he did not want to publicly call for UT to hire Terry permanently – which happened after the tournament – he said in March he was proud of his friend.

For Terry, the respect was mutual, of course. The night before his Longhorns played Xavier in the Sweet 16, Terry showed players highlights from Blanks’ game – and dance – against the Musketeers in 1990.

“I wanted them to have an emotional connection to the past,” Terry said.

Thanks to Blanks, they found one. As for those he left behind?

“The path ahead is dark without him,” Reed, his older daughter, said in the family’s statement. “(B)ut he once told me that he trusted my sister and me to carry the torch of our family’s legacy. And we will.”