Akeem Leviston

East TX Kid Living the Dream!
Rejoice. Pray. Give Thanks.

[CBS Sports College Football 🏈 @CBSSportsCFB]

Jason Eck was an assistant coach for 23 years and worked for 12 different head coaches.

Eck and his wife, Kimberly, always believed he would be successful as a head coach.

Now as the leading man for New Mexico, he’s got @UNMLoboFB ranked for the first time in program history.

#feature

[Jon Beck @CoachJonBeck]

Effort is the highest form of respect. Not just for yourself or your coaches, but for the game & every player who built that standard before you. Respect the game. Show up. Compete. Empty the tank. One day the noise all fades & your effort is all that remains. That’s your legacy!

[Greg Berge @GregBerge]

Love this from Vernon Davis.

Sometimes the best thing a coach can do for a player is hold them accountable, even when they don’t want to hear it.

Mike Singletary didn’t just see who Vernon Davis was.

He saw who he could become.

That’s coaching. 🔥

[Coach Jeff Barnes @JeffBarnes52]

There’s something special about being part of something bigger than yourself. Something that asks you to put aside your own interests, commit to something greater, and understand that the journey was never just about you.

In today’s day and age, that seems to be getting harder to find and even harder to embrace.

The players, coaches, and parents who do it best eventually look back and realize that the greatest part of the experience wasn’t always the wins, the recognition, or the individual accomplishments. It was the journey.

It was the relationships built, the adversity overcome, the lessons learned, and the memories made along the way. It was learning to put the team first, sacrifice for one another, and understand that you were part of something bigger than yourself.

The real reward of team athletics isn’t just what you accomplish together. It’s who you become along the way and the people who share that journey with you.

One day, you’ll look back and realize just how special it was to be part of something bigger than yourself.

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

In 2013 Jason Eck was changing the oil on lawnmowers and golf carts.

He was a Division I offensive line coach. Western Illinois had fired the head coach, and rather than pay out what it owed the assistants, the school kept them on payroll and sent them to work other jobs on campus.

Eck got the golf course. Then they moved him to a cubicle at the public transit center in Macomb, Illinois.

Here is how he describes it.

"I got transferred to the guy who ran the bookstore and the campus bus system."

Saturday night his New Mexico team is 5 and 1 with the best scoring defense in the country.

He has five kids. Here is what he says about those years.

"We've been in bad debt, bad financial shape. I've got five kids so it was nuts."

The man who ran that bookstore and bus system, Jude Kiah, is the one who talked him out of quitting. Kiah asked him whether he really wanted to walk away from everything he had put in. Eck started hunting jobs instead.

By that July he was the offensive coordinator at Minnesota State.

He walked on at Wisconsin as an offensive lineman. He thought about law school and never took the test. After the Rose Bowl he asked to coach instead.

His own dad coached college basketball. Toledo fired Jay Eck in 1991, less than a week after a one point loss with an NCAA tournament bid on it.

Jason took job after job after that. His wife Kimberly found out he had lost the Ball State job while she was going into labor with their third son.

Then South Dakota State, where John Stiegelmeier told him he would make a really good head coach. Idaho hired him in December of 2021 and he went 26 and 13 there. New Mexico hired him two years ago.

Last season the Lobos won nine games, beat UCLA, made their first bowl since 2016 and sold out a home game for the first time since 2007. He was Mountain West coach of the year.

And one of his linebackers is his son.

Jaxton Eck came out of Brookings, South Dakota with offers from Sioux Falls and Northern State. Division II. He played for his dad at Idaho, and when his dad took the New Mexico job he had North Carolina State, Michigan State and Stanford asking for him.

He went to New Mexico. Last season he had 115 tackles and shared Mountain West defensive player of the year.

Father and son won conference awards in the same season.

Now the part that complicates it. One good year is not a program. New Mexico has been bad for most of the last fifty years, and the hard truth about coaches who win there is that somebody bigger calls.

But here is what Jason Eck says now.

He does not know whether he would ever have become a head coach if his son had not played football.

Thirteen years ago he was changing oil on a lawnmower.

What were you doing right before the job that changed everything for you?

[Adam Hood @CoachAHood]

Never forget the people who helped you get to where you are today.

[Christopher Bence @CoachBence]

Honestly Crazy to me, love my job and my wife will tell you I put in way more hours at the house than I should, but I've come to learn that family is way more important.

If I dropped dead today. I'd get a social media post and my initials on a sticker on the helmet but everything will still move on, but my kids and wife will grieve for years to come.

Keys to being a good coach aren't hard:

1. Follow and trust in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

2. Love your family, and cherish every moment with them.

3. Pour everything you have into building young men to be better fathers and Husbands using the greatest game on the planet.

[Josh Chambers @JoshChambers]

Mark Brunell says the older he gets the less the championships and records matter, and the more he asks himself one question: Was the world better because I was here?

“The older you get in life, you’re able to accomplish a lot of things. I was able to accomplish a lot on the football field, and I’m very proud of that — the relationships that I have made through this sport, the places we’ve lived, a Super Bowl championship, a national championship, a Rose Bowl championship, all these things. They’re great and they’re wonderful.”

“But really, when it’s all said and done, you want to know that your life made an impact, because all that other stuff fades. It does. It’s wonderful, and I’m not taking away from it because I’m grateful for all of it. Such blessings. But as you look back, you want your life to have meant something.”

“You know it has with your children. You know it has with your wife and your close friends and your family, your brothers and your parents. But then out of the blue, you hear that your life, based on a 20-minute conversation, your testimony made an impact on somebody and you didn’t even know it. And it was lasting, and it was impactful, and it was life-changing.”

“You get surprised because just because you said a couple sentences that changed somebody’s life — it’s of far greater worth than anything I’ve ever done on the field. It’s lasting. It’s eternal. It means a ton.”

“That’s the cool stuff. That’s the stuff that has meaning. And really, honestly, the older you get, that’s like, man, you just want to know that when you leave this place, whenever that is, did I make an impact? Is this world a better place because I was here?”

[ECU Tigers Football @ECUTigersFB]

Gritty win over OBU ☔️. 17-10 final score!

#TheChase

[Michael Lombardi @mlombardinfl]

The divorce rate among college and NFL coaches is estimated at 60 to 70 percent.

Joshua Eargle has coached 23 years. Five FBS bowl games. Thirteen players to the NFL. His wife, Kristen, has moved with him through 14 programs. One of their children, Landrey, has had 23 hospitalizations and needs around-the-clock care.

They have been with programs where the kids weren't welcome at the office. Their children went several days without seeing their father.

Now Eargle is building the first football program at Texas A&M-Texarkana. He hung a motto on it: "All families. All the time. Always welcome."

When a coach gets the job, his family gets the lifestyle. Nobody asks them first.

[Jacob Johnson @CoachJohnson61]

Drafting Faith!

[Deaken Mueller @DeakenMueller]

Man I miss the game and the brotherhood🫡

[Merril Hoge @merrilhoge]

"I want it more than they do.”

That mindset changed the way I approached football, and eventually, it became something much bigger than football.

Because wanting it more isn’t about Sunday at 1:00 when 65,000 people are watching.

It’s about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday when nobody is watching.

It’s choosing to be relentlessly committed when it’s hard, inconvenient, or uncomfortable.
Do that long enough and it becomes a habit. Then it becomes a tool you can carry into every part of your life — your career, your relationships, your health, your goals.

Wanting it more can be the difference between where you are and where you want to be.

So ask yourself: How badly do you want it? And what are you willing to do when nobody is watching?

Find A Way. Every Day.

[The Winning Difference @thewinningdiff1]

“The most important person they’ll ever have in their life is a coach that holds them accountable on a daily basis. Teaches them work ethic, sacrifice, teamwork,” Dan Hurley

Great coaches develop your character and prepare you for life.

[CityViewMustangsFootball @CVMustangsFB]

Real World Wednesday: Coachability

@CoachNConway shared a message today about the ability to take feedback & correction without taking it personal.

Being coachable is a gift/skill we must all obtain in order to be successful in our field of choice. #OneHERD #ToeTheLine

[Angel @AngelStudiosInc]

A king. A prophecy. A child who will change the world.

Official Trailer for ZERO A.D.: The Birth of Christ.
In theaters December 11, 2026. Pre-order tickets at https://t.co/GzI5hBd2tJ

[Akeem Leviston @CoachLev2]

👊🏾

[Cody Fagan @Coach_Fagan30]

What a week for Whitesboro Athletics!! The discipline, accountability, and hard work displayed daily by our athletes is paying off right before our eyes!! Proud of what they have all put in so far!!
#REAPsndSOW26
#BOROTUFF

[Akeem Leviston @CoachLev2]

You’re only guaranteed 10 of these, so you have to make sure each one is special!

@CVMustangsFB

#OneHERD
#GameDay

[CityViewMustangsFootball @CVMustangsFB]

📆 : 9/4/2026
🕖️ : 7:00 PM
🆚: Windthorst Trojans
🏟️: Veterans Field
🎟️: CVISD Website
📺: https://t.co/qpoIDHcvFC

#OneHERD
#ToeTheLine