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It says a lot about Steve Nash that, one sunny evening this summer, there was no place he wanted to be more than a cemetery in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

The sun was setting, the beer and wine were flowing and the mood was light yet poignant.

Nash was gathered with a small crew of filmmakers at the grave of Terry Fox on June 28, the 28th anniversary of Fox's death, a current Canadian hero paying tribute to his own hero.

“He was a big influence,” Nash said of Fox, who in 1980 started a run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. When Fox's cancer metastasized, he had to end his run near Thunder Bay, and he died a year later.

His effort inspired a six-year-old Nash to rise each morning in the summer of 1980 in Victoria to trace Fox's progress in his Marathon of Hope.

“I feel really lucky,” Nash said. “I'm not sure there are many stories like that around the world. Who grew up and had someone enter their lives like that, who came from nowhere to become a national hero all for the right reasons and motives?”

Nash did, and now the Phoenix Suns' star has married his fascination with Fox and his new interest in filmmaking for a one-hour documentary about his childhood hero that will be shown on U.S. cable giant ESPN next spring. Nash's commitment to the project was evident to Terry's older brother Fred when Nash spent a couple of days in Port Coquitlam gathering footage for the film, interviewing Fox's parents and even driving the white support van used for Fox's run.

“We thought that the ESPN guys would be here doing it,” Fred Fox said, “but Steve was right in the middle of it, giving his own direction and thoughts, which makes it even more impressive, seeing his passion about Terry's story.”

On the court, Nash has carved out a career worthy of the hall of fame by deftly bringing out the best in others, finding connections and seeing opportunities that aren't obvious or simply remain untouched.

Having recently signed a two-year, $22-million (all currency U.S.) contract extension with the Suns, Nash, 35, expects to play for three more seasons, but increasingly he's been looking beyond his basketball career.

He likes what he sees, as the Steve Nash Foundation continues to build momentum while raising money for charitable work from Paraguay to Uganda; he's part of the ownership group bringing Major League Soccer to Vancouver, and he's partners in Meathawk, a production company he shares with his cousin Ezra Holland.

“I don't want it to come off the wrong way because I feel as good as I've ever felt and I expect to play at the level I've been playing at for the remaining few years at least,” Nash said yesterday while in Toronto to promote an online film contest sponsored by electronics manufacturer LG and to hobnob with the Hollywood elite at the opening gala for the Toronto International Film Festival. “But I'm also in a transition stage where I have a lot of interests outside basketball, a lot of passions.”

He's well positioned to act on them. The Fox documentary was given the green light after a single meeting with ESPN's production arm.

“Of course, that's how it is, right?” Nash deadpanned. “You tell people what you're going to do and they give you money to do it, right?”

An opportunity is one thing, but now the pressure is on to honour Fox's legacy and break through to a mainstream U.S. audience, something that the Terry Fox Foundation has yet to manage despite raising more than $400-million for cancer research. On Sunday there are scheduled to be Terry Fox Runs in more than about 1,000 communities across Canada, but just a fraction of that in the United States.

Nash is confident that he and his cousin have tapped into the universal theme in Fox's story by using his journal entries as a narrative thread to recreating Fox's journey through the eyes of a tired, scared, yet determined 22-year-old.

“To me that's the story,” Nash said, “to hear him doubt himself, to hear him go through that self-talk in his journal. ‘Can I do it? Will I let everyone down if I quit?' He took on those challenges that we all succumb to. He's a simple guy who would not quit. That is such a profound story and the reason why he had a huge impact on our country, our cultural fabric and my life was because he overcame those voices.

“It's a pretty amazing story and an incredible project to be a part of.”

Nash hopes there will be more film projects to come and the next time he's in Toronto on the opening night of the film festival, it will be in support of his own feature-length narrative. But it's unlikely any story could provide an experience like he had this summer at Fox's grave, waiting for the light to be just right.

“It was a goose-bump moment,” Nash says. “It was a pretty amazing moment for me.”