‘Strike Season’: Author recalls year Mt. Lebanon football team played without coaches
Author recalls year Mt. Lebanon football team played without coaches
Jimmy Carter’s presidency was embattled, diplomats were being taken hostage in Iran, “Apocalypse Now” was alternately dazzling and puzzling moviegoers and Led Zeppelin’s final studio album, “In Through the Out Door” was at the top of the charts.
The fall of 1979 was also a moment of upheaval in many American classrooms. The 1979-80 academic year saw a rash of strikes by teachers in school districts across the country. The spur for most of the work stoppages was an annual inflation rate of 13%, which many teachers and their unions argued was devouring their paychecks. The nine-month period from September 1979 to June 1980 saw 242 strikes in U.S. school districts, which remains a record, according to the National Education Association.
Mt. Lebanon was one of those districts. As the school year was just getting underway, teachers staged a walkout that lasted six weeks and proved to be profoundly bitter. For most of the district’s students it was an extension of their summer vacation. For members of the high school’s Blue Devils football team, however, the strike meant their whole season could be kicked away and, perhaps, dreams of playing football for a college or university.
Rather than let that happen, they decided to play anyway – and coach themselves while their adult coaches were AWOL.
“As time went on, it got more and more antagonistic,” according to Michael Eck, who was the team’s quarterback and is now a semi-retired investment banker who calls Old Greenwich, Conn., home. The school board gave the boys permission to play football despite the strike, earning the enmity of some of their teachers – they believed their students were essentially being scabs.
That tumultuous season has “resonated in my head” for almost a half-century, Eck explained in a recent phone interview from his New York office, and he has recounted it in the book “Strike Season,” which was published earlier this month by Regalo Press.
“I know it’s an interesting story,” said Eck, who is now 63. “I’ll let the reader be the judge of it.”
Going from investment banking to penning a book was “a little bit of a gear shift,” Eck acknowledged. However, he took a creative writing course and decided to dive in. His son, who is a literary agent, told him that whatever he came up with would not be interesting “unless it’s your story” and “it has to be more than a football story.”
Eck labored over one draft for a year and showed it to his son, who told him that he needed to work in other perspectives. That kicked off a long process of tracking down former classmates and teachers, combing minutes of old school board meetings and conducting interviews both on Zoom and in Mt. Lebanon.
“I had about half of it right,” Eck explained. One of the most fulfilling parts of bringing “Strike Season” to life was “learning things I didn’t know.” Unsurprisingly, considering that more than 40 years had gone by since that memorable football season, some memories differed and some people Eck wished he had been able to talk to were no longer alive, including all the community members who served on Mt. Lebanon’s school board back then.
Despite having no adult coaches for a chunk of the season, the 1979 Blue Devils ended up with a 9-1 record. That team also produced one player who went on to greater gridiron glory – John Frank went on to play for Ohio State University and was a tight end for the San Francisco 49ers from 1984 to 1988.
“Strike Season” is being billed as “‘Friday Night Lights’ meets ‘Lord of the Flies,'” so it makes you wonder – how did a bunch of hormone-addled teenage boys manage to coach themselves, and do so well on the playing field?
“It was a lot of trial and error,” Eck said. “A lot of unsuccessful attempts. It was a lot of survival of the fittest.”
Nevertheless, “the experience has transformed our lives,” he noted.
Eck said there is the possibility that “Strike Season” could be made into a movie, and he will be visiting Williamsport and Mt. Lebanon to talk about the book in October. In the meantime, Eck is also tending to a nonprofit organization, STEER for Student Athletes, which provides mentoring and other types of support for student athletes.
One thing that has changed in the decades that have passed since Eck played high school football is the increased awareness of the toll that concussions and head injuries can take on young athletes. Eck said that back in his playing days he ended up with a concussion or two, but now students aren’t told to tough it out and get back on the field the way they once might have.
“It’s real,” Eck said. “It’s serious. I think the way it’s approached is much better than back in the day. There is a protocol and there is a much better understanding.”
More information on Eck’s book can be found at www.simonandschuster.com.