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Noah Eckenroth cannot remember the last time he's played video games let alone picked up a gaming controller.
Which makes total sense.
He rarely has time for his favorite hobbies.
So how would he have time for frivolous activities like playing "Fortnite," "Overwatch 2" or "PUBG?"
While lots of his schoolmates at Northville are glued to their screens, Eckenroth is training. Training in the morning. Training after school. Training at night. And if it's summer break, he's probably sneaking in training during the day.
That's the typical schedule of a three-sport athlete.
But Eckenroth isn't your typical three-sport athlete. He's about to be a three-sport college athlete.
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That's right. The senior has signed with Kalamazoo College. He'll run cross-country, compete as a swimmer and be a distance runner on the track and field team.
"I've done three sports for all four years of high school, and it's given me many opportunities to meet new people, work with new coaches and be around cool people," he said. "I feel like doing it in college is a great opportunity to keep doing what I love."
Eckenroth just wrapped up quite the senior year.
He recorded 10 top-25 finishes in cross country, including four top-10 times. He ended the fall by running 16 minutes, 43.8 seconds in the 5 kilometers at the Division 1 state championship, helping the Mustangs finish fourth as a team.
During the winter, he qualified for the state finals in swimming. He competed in both the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events.
And this past spring, he was quite the point collector for the Mustangs, as he finished, at the bare minimum, in the top eight in every track event he competed in except for two. That included helping the 3,200-meter relay team take first place, runner-up finishes in the 2 mile, several top-four finishes in the 1 mile and a third-place effort once in the 800.
You're probably reading that like, "What, really? The 5 kilometers? The 500? The 2 mile? What kind of person would subject themselves to so many distance events."
"I just like pacing myself through a race. It's not about gunning it," Eckenroth said.
Being successful in three sports as well as taking care of business at school requires time management.
When it's not swimming season, he still tries to get in the swimming pool for at least 90 minutes a day.
And when it is swimming season, he tries to run five or six days a week.
He's either swimming at Lifetime Fitness or Farmington Family YMCA (where he's also part of the Farmington Stingrays' club team when he's not swimming for Northville), or he's running outside.
Sometimes he mountain bikes at Mayberry Park to get in his cardio, which he said is actually his favorite hobby. And, truly, the only video game that interests him right now is "Rust." But he'd rather be fishing at his grandparents' place in the Jackson area than playing an online multiplayer survival game.
"I'm never bored or burned out on a sport because I've always got another sport on the backburner about to start up," he said. "Though, I definitely find myself always trying to get to the pool to stay in shape with swimming.
"I'm basically just always moving. But it's also always fun trying to manage what I need to get done."
Eckenroth gets his inspiration to compete from his family.
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His mother, Amy, battles rheumatoid arthritis, but she still manages the Eckenroth household. Noah said she's always keeping him on task, whether it's having him get enough sleep before meets or remembering to do homework. Noah wants to take advantage of his physical gifts because that's something his mother cannot always do.
He also is inspired by his older sister, Cayla, who ran cross country and track and field at both Ball State and Southern Methodist University. She was a four-year letter winner in both sports at Northville.
"She always talked about how much she loved running and that always wore off on me, so I knew I'd always enjoy it, too," Noah said. "But I also like to swim just as much as I like to run, so I decided that I wasn't going to just focus on one sport.
"I've been able to manage both training schedules and still throw down good times for both sports. I knew I'd be able to keep up doing multiple sports in college and still be able to compete at a high level."
Getting days off or extra free time is rare for Noah, who enjoys watching streamers on YouTube, binging random topics on the History Channel and listening to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, anything that keeps his "mind engaged."
And he's not about to get any more free time this summer. On top of his training, he'll be working as a lifeguard at Northville Swim Club as well as a camp counselor/lifeguard with the City of Novi.
Shocking, right? A multi-sport athlete who holds down multiple jobs.
That's the only way Noah knows how to do it.
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on Twitter @folsombrandonj.
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