Alumni Spotlight: Michael Eck

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Former University of Virginia football player Michael Eck has a story to tell, and it might seem like something Hollywood would concoct. But it’s all true.

Eck, who grew up in the Pittsburgh area, graduated from UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce in 1984. Three years later, he received an MBA from Northwestern University and then went to work as an investment banker on Wall Street. But he never forgot his final football season at Mount Lebanon High School, where Eck and his fellow co-captains took charge of the team amid a teachers’ strike that sidelined the coaching staff in the fall of 1979.

“It’s always been with me,” Eck said. “I always had it in my head, and every now and then I would take writing classes, because I had a bug that at some point I was going to write something.

“I always said I compared it to Friday Night Lights. I read the book and watched the movie, and I said, I think we have something— if it's told well.”

His son Connor, a successful literary agent, agreed. “He knew the story and we discussed the framework of the story, and he encouraged me to write it,” Eck said.

And so Eck went to work, writing draft after draft in longhand. The result, three years in the making, is his memoir Strike Season, which Regalo Press will publish in August. Simon & Schuster is distributing the book, which can be pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Nobles and similar outlets.

Eck, who lives near New York City in Old Greenwich, Conn., still does some project work in investment banking, and he’s the co-founder of STEER for Student Athletes, a non-profit organization that partners with public school systems to help at-risk youths.

“All the proceeds from sales of this book—if there are proceeds—are going to STEER,” Eck said.

He wrote his book in his spare time, with input from his son throughout the process. In the initial stage, Connor “just said, ‘Don't edit it, just write it. Don’t check notes, don't check dates, just write it,’ ” Eck recalled. “So I did. And I came back to him, and I handed it to him, and he said, ‘There's something here, but this isn't it.’

“And so he said, ‘You’re now a reporter. Drop your pen and go interview teammates, coaches, board members, union members. You gotta go do real work and develop more storylines, more characters and more authenticity.’ ”

Eck spent six months doing as instructed, then gave his son another draft. The response?

“He said, ‘This is better, but you have to write it in the first person. This is just a dumb football book. You have to write your story,’ ” Eck recalled. “And I was like, OK, that will be the hardest part of this. So I spent another six months writing it as my story.”

This version piqued the interest of publishers, including Regalo Press, with which Eck decided to partner. The promotional phase is under way. During the NFL draft weekend in April, Eck came home to discuss the book as part of a Friday Night Lights exhibit put on by the Historical Society of Mount Lebanon.

“We sold a bunch of books,” Eck said, “and my head coach was there, the head of the teachers’ union was there, four of my teammates were there. It was just a relief—I wouldn’t say a joy, but a relief—that we were talking about the book in a way that made me feel that I got it roughly right.”

As a high school senior, Eck learned, his grasp of everything that was happening that fall had been far from complete. That became apparent to him during his interviews with Art Walker, Mount Lebanon’s head coach in 1979, and Mark McCloskey, who was head of the teachers’ union.

“The two things I had no appreciation of were, one, what the coach went through,” Eck said. “As I describe it, I'm a 16-year-old, self-absorbed knucklehead. All I wanted to do was play football and get a scholarship. As shallow as it sounds, I didn't even realize that [Walker] was a human being with a family and kids that couldn't go to Mount Lebanon High School because he couldn't afford [to live in that area]. So this story is as much his story as mine. I hope he comes across as a hero. I had no idea how tortured he was in the decision that he had to make to support the union. In his mind, he didn't abandon us, but he supported the union. So he went close to the line.”

His conversations with McCloskey proved eye-opening for Eck, too. “That whole story, I had no idea, and then my teammates added stories and color.”

Eck hopes his depictions are accurate. He shared a galley of the book with his siblings, Eck said, “because I was concerned how my brothers and sisters would like my portrayal of my parents and them. So far, so good. I've gotten some teasing, but no disownment.”

At Mount Lebanon, Eck played for one of Pennsylvania’s storied programs. He starred at quarterback as a 12^th-grader, and that’s where he played for most of his college career, too.

UVA’s head coach for Eck’s first two seasons was Dick Bestwick. George Welsh succeeded Bestwick in December 1981 and built one of the ACC’s best programs.

A string of injuries marred Eck’s career at Virginia. A broken collarbone sidelined him in 1980, and he ended up redshirting that season. He played in six games in 1981 and then split time at quarterback with Wayne Schuchts for the first part of the ’82 season. (Eck started Welsh’s first game as Virginia's head coach: a 20-16 loss to Navy.)

Torn ligaments in his throwing hand ended Eck's 1982 season prematurely, and a shoulder injury delayed his debut in '83. By the time he was cleared to play that fall, he was third on the depth chart at QB behind Schuchts and Don Majkowski.

“My football experience wasn't anything to write home about,” Eck said. 

Still, he made the most of his four years at UVA. Eck roomed with teammates Ed Griffith, Bryan Hitchcock and David Bond until his fourth year, when he lived on the Lawn, and said he still treasures “the lifelong learnings and relationships and my degree. I don't know what a degree means these days, but back then, man, it meant something. It was a distinguishing thing.”

His college football career included an unexpected twist. As a high school senior, he’d turned down an offer to play defensive back at Notre Dame, his father’s alma mater and the team for which Eck grew up rooting. As a UVA senior, Eck moved to the secondary in October 1983.

“It was really hard to stand there and watch on Saturdays,” Eck told the Daily Progress in an article about his position change. “My heart is at quarterback, but right now I just want to play.”

Forty-some years later, Eck remembers that the Cavaliers were thin in the secondary that fall, and so he saw his move as a way to help the team.

“I played [defense] my whole life until my senior year in high school,” Eck said. “I had a blast playing it, too. All of a sudden it’s like you’re let out of jail, and I get to hit people or at least see who's coming to hit me. And that was fun.”

The Cavaliers finished 2-9 in 1982, their first season under Welsh, and improved to 6-5 in ‘83. Eck had a year of eligibility remaining but chose to enter the workforce in 1984, taking a job with First Union bank in Charlotte, N.C. By the time he left Grounds, though, he could see that Welsh, who’d worked wonders at Navy, his alma mater, had UVA’s program on the rise.

“My roommates David Bond and Bryan Hitchcock, they stayed for a fifth year and they were part of that team that won the Peach Bowl [in 1984],” Eck said, “and so you could tell it was different and [Welsh] was driving it to a different place.

“We tease each other now, my roommates and I, that you're either part of that [1984] team or you're not part of that team. The Peach Bowl guys are the winners and the guys that didn't play aren’t. But you could tell [the culture] was different. Absolutely.”

Over the past 15 years, Eck said, he’s reconnected with UVA football, in appreciation of what the program “did for me. And the most important thing it did for me was, I have lifelong friendships that are still some of my best friends. We meet at least once a year around a game down in Charlottesville and spend three days together, and it's like we've never left each other. For better or for worse, we play the same roles we had.”

Eck has also stepped up his financial support of the program. “I'm fascinated how we are playing into the new NIL and changing landscape, and I have tried to help where I could,” he said.

Eck has also stepped up his financial support of the program. “I'm fascinated how we are playing into the new NIL and changing landscape, and I have tried to help where I could,” he said.

He’s active with the Life After Virginia Foundation (LAVA), a non-profit organization committed to helping current and former UVA football players in their transitions to the working world.

Eck provides not only financial support but “business acumen support,” he said, “since I've started my own non-profit.”

His lifelong passion for football shines through in his book. Eck’s favorite movies include Remember the Titans and Friday Nights Light. Who knows? Strike Season could end up on the big screen one day.

“I have gotten a series of calls [about that],” Eck said, “and I just say, ‘I’m honored, thank you,’ and I take notes. But I tell them my focus is on the book right now, and nothing else.”

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