Jason Eck is hot on his father’s heels when it comes to his cross-continent coaching career.
Eck’s coaching career has already included eight stops since he exhausted his eligibility at Wisconsin in 1998. But Montana State’s new offensive line coach is plenty used to moving around America.
Eck grew up the son of longtime college basketball coach Jay Eck. And since Eck became a college coach, his path has been filled with new adventures and challenges much like his father’s.
After finishing his playing career at Xavier in Cincinnati, Jay Eck began a coaching odyssey that would include six collegiate stops with a few high school jobs spliced in between. He was an assistant at Bradley from 1979 until 1983, helping the Peoria, Illinois school to the 1982 NIT championship. While at Pittsburgh, he recruited Jerome Lange of Bill Raftery fame; Raftery’s call ‘Send it in, Jerome’ when Lang shattered a backboard with a thunderous dunk against Providence in 1988 remains one of college basketball’s iconic moments.
Jay Eck then spent three seasons as the head coach at Wisconsin-Stevens Point beginning in 1987 and five more seasons as the head coach at Toledo ending in 1991. The Ecks spent four years in Atlanta with Jay coaching high school hoops and Jason earning himself a scholarship to become a Wisconsin Badger offensive lineman. By 1995, Jay Eck returned to college hoops as an assistant for Loyola (Chicago). Since 2004, he’s been an assistant at Towson.
Jason’s coaching career has been almost as hectic. After playing on Wisconsin’s 1998 Rose Bowl team, he served as a graduate assistant at his alma mater for three seasons. Since the beginning of the 21st century, he path has spanned the continent. He spent two seasons in Boulder coaching Colorado and two more in Moscow coaching Idaho. He made brief two-year stops coaching the offensive line at Winona (Minnesota) State and Ball State, a single season Hampton and two more at Western Illinois before landing at Minnesota State. In Mankato, he served as the offensive coordinator last seasons.
Eck’s path has been sporadic and expansive partly because it’s the nature of the business for a young coach and partly due to misfortune. Gary Barnett was forced out at CU in 2005 the year after Eck’s grad assistant stint ended. Nick Holt jumped ship to Southern Cal after the 2005 season at Idaho, leaving Eck out of a job. A season after working his way back up to Division I, in 2010 Ball State head coach Stan Parrish was fired. His one season at Hampton helped him land at Western Illinois, but after his second season with the Leathernecks, head coach Mark Hendrickson was fired, sending Eck back to the D-II ranks again.
Now Eck is on the upswing again. After helping the Mavericks to the Division II national title game last fall, he was Montana State offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey’s first choice to replace longtime offensive line coach Jason McEndoo, a highly decorated assistant who left for a similar position on Mike Gundy’s staff at Oklahoma State. Cramsey interviewed Eck to coach the offensive line at New Hampshire back in 2009.
“They sold me on coming to a place where football is very important,” Eck said. “It’s a great atmosphere. That’s what you don’t really have in Division II. The end product is not as important. They also sold me on the chance that we could be very good this year. I’ve gone through some transitions in my career but when you are coming into a good position group that has had success and the old coach who is moving on to a better job is better than if you are coming into a situation where the guy got fired because they weren’t any good.
“I’ve been through when the head coach has been fired and that’s no fun. You have to find a new job and you don’t know where. I’m used to it but if I can get to a place where I can consistently win and be happy, have a good life and a good home, that’s the goal.”
The situation Eck inherited in Bozeman is an ideal one, at least in terms of on-field stability. In the spring, Eck took over a unit featuring five players with starting experience, including four who are seniors and a fifth, junior J.P. Flynn, who’s a consensus preseason All-America. Tbe goal for the first year: to “just not screw it up,” Eck said with a laugh.
While the on-field product should be solid, Eck has had an uphill battle taking over for a coach who carved out a place as an all-time MSU great. McEndoo spent 12 seasons at MSU, more than any assistant before him. He coached seven All-Americas and at least one of his offensive lineman served as a team captain in all but one of his seasons. In 2011, he earned national recognition as the FCS Assistant Coach of the Year, named by the American Football Coaches Association.
McEndoo’s recruiting territories were Montana and the Midwest, so he played a heavy hand in landing Flynn (Bettendorf, Iowa), senior left tackle John Weidenaar (Manhattan), senior center Joel Horn (Kalispell), senior guard Kyle Godecke (Dillon), senior right tackle Alex Eekhoff (Reno) along with key sophomore backups Dylan Mahoney (Great Falls) and Caleb Gillis (Dillon). He is also heralded as one of the game’s best fundamental teachers and motivators, a coach that can make in-game adjustments with the best of them and instill confidence in his players that does not waver.
“The early stuff is done, gone with, but it’s still an adjustment,” said Weidenaar, a four-year starter who’s been at left tackle for 38 straight games. “Us senior leaders, we’ve been with Coach Mac for four years so we are still learning from what it was to what it is now. But I’d say it’s been good. There’s been some bumps in the road, but that’s to be expected. It’s not going to be smooth sailing.”
Eck was hired in February, meaning he had a full set of 15 spring practices to acclimate to his new group. A week into MSU’s fall camp, the coach and the pupils are continuing to mesh.
“It’s definitely quicker than I was expecting,” Flynn said. “I had a real close relationship with Mac. But Coach Eck has stepped right in and he’s fit us. He’s worked really hard to get to know us and find out really hard what each of our own personalities is and not try to be someone he’s not. We’ve really appreciated that as an offensive line. We can tell he’s a real guy. He’s not coming in here trying to be fake with us, trying to b.s. us or anything. He’s just being himself.”
MSU head coach Rob Ash knew the day McEndoo jumped to the FBS would come. But when it happened leading up to a season that should feature the strongest front in Ash’s nine-year tenure, the head coach was apprehensive. Now that his team is weeks away from opening up the 2015 season, Ash is satisfied with the progress.
“I think it’s really leaps and bounds better than the spring,” Ash said. “More time has gone by. He was brand new in the spring and I’m glad he was here in the spring. He got to get to know the guys. And now, it feels like he’s their coach. They’ve embraced his style and his techniques and his way of teaching. They like him. He has a good relationship with them. He’s doing a really good job.”
McEndoo had a very straight forward coaching style, one that emphasized individual aggression and cohesiveness as a unit. Eck has tried to build on that by teaching the Bobcat offensive linemen to read and react on the fly.
“My first couple of years here, everything was black and white,” Flynn said. “There was nothing ever different. You learned EXACTLY what you were supposed to do on every single play, in every single situation in every game. Coach Eck is more of a reaction. He wants you to learn how to react to a play when you don’t see it coming. Be able to not know what the defense is running and still be able to pick it up.”
Eck’s coaching style is a mirror of how he lives his personal life. Because of the uncertain nature of the coaching business, Eck said he and his wife, Kimberly, have long had a reactionary and positive outlook to life.
“My wife is the best,” said Eck, whowith Kimberly already has sons Quentin (12), Jax (10) and Palmer (4) and will add a fourth child in September. “She’s embraced it and she’s always ready. I think parents with kids are just like players with coaches. They’ll vibe off of you. If someone gets injured and the coach hangs his head, the kids vibe off that. If the coach has a good attitude, the players will. Children are the same way and she’s the best at staying positive through the moves. She’s the MVP who makes all this possible.”
Eck has moved no less than 14 times in his 37 years. He’s gotten pretty good at packing and unpacking boxes and loading them into trucks and vans. For the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s found a town that might make him to stay awhile.
“I miss family and you build strong connections with the players, so I miss them,” Eck said. “We are far from family out here. But this is a good and easy place to get people to come to. It’s so nice up here. It’s a lot prettier here to look up and see all those mountains. When my wife got off the airplane, she was in awe. She just stared. You can’t beat that.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
