The visitation for Burlington’s Zach Mertens was held Tuesday. The one-time Bellevue High School sports standout passed away unexpectedly on August 10. Mertens, a 2025 Bellevue graduate, had recently celebrated his 20th birthday in June. Authorities said he fell from the top of South Falls at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon, about 50 miles south of Portland.
Investigators determined that Mertens had entered a closed area near the top of South Falls while attempting to pose for photographs. Authorities said he slipped in the restricted area and fell into the water approximately 177 feet below. A rescue attempt was unsuccessful, and Mertens died at the scene.
The circumstances of his death are tragic and public, the kind that can eclipse the quieter, everyday ways he made people feel good about themselves and about Bellevue — more specifically, about their Tigers. But those who knew him will remember the way he lived just as vividly.
Mertens made people smile. That was the whole shebang. He made people laugh. He made them think. Mertens made them hustle to their seats before the opening tip-off of a Bellevue varsity boys basketball game because missing the first quarter meant missing the chance to watch him go off on one of his trademark scoring rampages.
He was a very good basketball player at Bellevue, and if you believe in heaven’s hardwood, he’s probably shooting the lights out right now. Knowing Mertens, he’s already made someone look silly with his arsenal of basketball tools. If the lights flicker while you read this, that’s just Zach saying it’s OK to be sad — but don’t worry.
Sadness is different than worry. Mertens rarely carried both at once when he wore a Bellevue uniform. His basketball coach, current Bellevue athletic director Jim Hicks, says the crafty guard played with an unbridled joy for the game. Hicks remembers him as an unflappable teammate who modeled the right things for younger players, passing along what he learned from the savvy Tigers who came before him.
As a teammate, Mertens was a master craftsman quietly sliding tools across the workbench to newer builders. He handled his role with care because he knew his teammates held the keys to the house. Even as a young player, he wanted to make sure they had the best blueprints available.
“He was easy to coach as the team always came first,” Hicks said.
Even when Mertens was putting the team on his back with one of his patented scoring displays, he disguised the one-man showmanship with a team-centric vibe. And it wasn’t just offense. He was an inveterate hound on defense — picking pockets, forcing bad passes. He flummoxed opponents with a flamboyant but controlled style of play.
And that charismatic smile when Bellevue won? Electric. As real and authentic as his swagger on the court.
“He had the ability to take over a game on either end of the floor if we needed him to,” Hicks said.
Mertens scored 1,307 career points at Bellevue, ranking eighth all-time at a school that’s been around a long, long time. He stacked all those points without playing a single game his senior season. As a junior, he averaged 15 points per contest, second-best on the team. He added 3.3 rebounds — proof he refused to be a one-trick pony.
He averaged 14.6 points and 4.7 rebounds as a sophomore, ranking second on the team in both categories. As a freshman, he led the Tigers in scoring (13.3) and rebounding (5.1). Even as an eighth grader, the small guard was third on the team in scoring (7.6). He was fourth in rebounding (3.3).
By the time he was 18, Mertens stood nearly 6-foot-1, but he didn’t suit up for his final year.
“He was dealing with some personal things in his life that made basketball not as relevant,” Hicks said.
Whatever it was — and it doesn’t matter what it was — Mertens handled it with courage. He dealt with it in a way that made it more important than basketball, which for him ranked right up there with family, hiking and camping. His former coach says Mertens was quietly courageous. He said Mertens was that way in practice, in huddles, with seconds left on the clock and the score tied.
Boom. Another go-ahead basket from Mertens, the kind that ended games before anyone realized it.
“He was an incredible player,” Hicks said. “But a better person.”
