SportsCenter anchor and ESPN personality Michael Eaves has lived a full life already, both personally and professionally.
He’s gone from a small town in Kentucky to Los Angeles to ESPN. He’s won awards, gotten married, and even traveled on a superyacht as part of the reality television Below Deck: Mediterranean (more on that later…)
But after recently turning 50, Eaves has continued to grow and tackle new goals and challenges. But this time, they have nothing to do with sports and nothing to do with broadcasting.
It has everything to do with giving back.
”That is a time for reflection for the average person if you reach that milestone (turning 50),” Eaves told BSM this week. “I’ve just decided to just make more purpose of my life to reach out and be an asset for philanthropy.”
Eaves is diving headlong into two charitable efforts that he’s been involved with previously: Team Rubicon and the V Foundation.
Team Rubicon provides relief to those affected by disaster or crises and the organization pairs the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders, medical professionals, and technology solutions.
This provides a benefit on multiple fronts in that an affected area gets more personnel on the ground in the rebuilding effort, and military veterans continue to have a purpose after serving.
“It’s so often we see when military veterans come back home following their services, especially combat veterans, there are a lot of issues they deal with once they get back trying to reintegrate themselves into society,” he said. “And they sometimes lose their sense of purpose. When you were in the military, when you were serving your country, your purpose is very clear on a day to day basis. When you get back home and are out of that environment, sometimes people lose that sense of purpose. And oftentimes, unfortunately, it leads to addiction for a lot of these veterans and sometimes even suicide.”
“What Team Rubicon has done over the last decade or so is use the resources of military veterans to help people in need, but it’s also something that helps the military veterans as well,” he added.
Team Rubicon has 158,000 veterans-volunteers and has already been working in Florida after Hurricane Ian made a devastating landfall earlier this month.
With the V Foundation, Eaves will be part of an event on December 5th entitled “Booyah! A Celebration of Stuart Scott,” which is meant to help fundraise and to help make an impact on cancer research disparities in the name of the former beloved ESPN personality, who died from cancer in 2015.
“Cancer research is basically just another reflection of American society in that underserved communities, especially Black and Brown communities, just don’t have the normal resources that other communities have, and that often falls in the realm of healthcare as well,” Eaves said.
“So when you look at statistics and people who battle cancer… Black and Brown people, especially Black people, die at a much higher rate than white people do when they get cancer. Getting access to treatments for cancer are much harder for people in those communities, so the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund through the V Foundation addresses that disparity specifically and really trying to make gains and trying to help everyone get access to the treatment they need for cancer.”
The event on December 5th will be held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City and will feature Scott’s daughters, Taelor and Sydni.
You can donate to the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research fund HERE.
While the main purpose of this piece was to highlight Eaves’ charitable work and philanthropic calling after turning 50, I couldn’t help but ask him two questions I was extremely curious about, one serious and one not. Some of the answers have been shortened for clarity.
BSM: Michael, my guilty pleasure television show is Below Deck on Bravo! And I’m not afraid to admit it. I don’t watch the Mediterranean franchise that you appeared on, but I have to know what it was like being a part of that show?
ME: First of all, I didn’t realize how many people watched that show until my episode aired and had all these people that I knew — and some people I hadn’t heard from in forever started saying “I saw you on Below Deck, you were on Below Deck! It was a very cool experience….
We had to quarantine in a house there in Croatia for a week before we even got on the boat because it was during Covid, so that was cool just being in the house. But once you get on the boat, man? Now I know how Magic Johnson lives! Like Magic Johnson does that trip like every year and he’s out there for a month on a boat like that. So we were there for like three nights I think it was, it was incredible. The water? The scenery in Croatia? It was great.
As far as the TV stuff that’s concerned, it was a little weird because I’m used to seeing cameras every night when I go to work, but there, they’re specifically for me to address where with these, you kind of have to ignore, but it’s kind of hard to ignore when a camera is literally directly behind the person you’re talking to, right? But at the same time, it didn’t feel that invasive. I will say that they were pretty good at being out of the way as much as possible and allowing you to be yourself…”
BSM: You were on the air for five straight hours the day that Kobe Bryant died. You had worked in LA and you knew Kobe. How did you do it? How do you balance the emotions between what is a really hard day, but I’m sure also a career-defining moment?”
ME: It was the best and worst day of my career, quite honestly. It was the worst because it was the first time I really had to report on the death of someone I knew on that much of a personal level. Now, there have been other athletes who have passed away that I’ve met before, but I knew Kobe, like we’d hung out socially. So that was different. And I had 30 minutes — not even 30 minutes — I think it was like 20, 22 minutes between the time that we knew that he was dead and I got on the air and announced it. So that was the worst part.
But to your point, it was also one of the best moments of my career, because I did it. And quite honestly, I did it well, and I have no problem saying that because that is a very hard thing to do. And you know, we were on for three hours consecutively without a commercial break, right? The first three hours we were on, we did not have a commercial break.
And so that’s just back and forth with Zubin (Mehenti) and I, taking phone calls, going to press conferences, things of that nature. I guess the short answer to “how did I do it? I had to, In that moment, you don’t think about how we’re going to do it there. This is the job, this is what is required, and you do it…And, in the moment I didn’t realize it and then once I got home and I poured myself a glass of Kentucky Bourbon just to soak it all in, it was a hell of a day, man. And I hope I never have to go through that again.
Brady Farkas is a sports radio professional with 5+ years of experience as a Program Director, On-Air Personality, Assistant Program Director and Producer in Burlington, VT and Albany, NY. He’s well versed in content creation, developing ideas to generate ratings and revenue, working in a team environment, and improving and growing digital content thru the use of social media, audio/video, and station websites. His primary goal is to host a daily sports talk program for a company/station that is dedicated to serving sports fans. You can find him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady and reach him by email at bradyfarkas@gmail.com.
