A Son to be Proud of
When it comes to the game of life, East Carolina junior Nick Mckeel has played it anything but straight forward.
The Wilmington, NC native was raised by his grandparents and it wasn’t until three short years ago that he finally met his father, Greg Dawson.
“It was a surprise,” Dawson said. “All of these years I thought I wasn’t [Nick's father].”
While it may seem just to be the classic case of a son finally meeting his long lost father; it’s anything but. According to Dawson, the background behind his and Nick’s lost 18 years would be “too crazy for a Jerry Springer show.”
The court system seemingly failed Dawson twice of finding out if Mckeel was truly his son. Even though he didn’t dwell deep into reasons behind the courts rulings because of likely resulting legal issues, Dawson did describe the situation as a “cover up” involving some prominent names around North Carolina.
The chance to finally set things right came when Mckeel turned 18.
“My wife told me that ‘when he turns 18, he is either going to knock on the door or the phone is going to ring” Dawson said. “Well, she was about four days off.”
“I was waiting for that phone call to hear he was coming because I wanted to know too [whether he was the father]. I wanted in all to be proven.”
From there Dawson and Mckeel arranged to meet and have a DNA test done to once and for all find out the answer to the question they had been asking for almost two decades. For around 11 days Mckeel hid the fact that the test was even taking place. He later described the experience as “rough”.
However, once finding out that the DNA test resulted in a match, he describes the situation as “taking a positive from a negative” and Dawson couldn’t agree more.
“They were long [the 11 days]” Dawson said. “It’s something I had been trying to do for a long time but his mother never let it happen.”
With the test proving that Dawson was in fact Mckeel’s father, their attention turned to building a father-son relationship.
“I don’t think we can ever have a relationship like my father and I had because it was 18 year’s that I missed,” Dawson said. “I still believe we can have a father-son relationship though.”
“There’s a lot more to being a father than just bearing a child,” added Dawson. “Anybody can be a parent, but a father is just like a marriage, it’s something you have to work on everyday.”
The impact of finding his father made a night and day difference in Mckeel according to childhood friend Byron McSweeney.
“I remember the day he found out who his father was; he was so excited”, said McSweeney. “You could tell the fact that he has a dad. It really changed him”.
While the search for his father ruled most of his early life, McKeel still found time to become socially active. He is a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at ECU and is a member of the Masons, an organization that helps to raise money for widows and orphans, as well as the Sudan Shiners, an organization that helps support the Shiners hospitals for crippled and burned children around the country.
“Nick has a lot of influence because of his leadership ability”, said Garrett Beaver, one of Mckeel’s fraternity brothers.” “He is always one of the first ones to step up and do something for the fraternity when it is needed.”
Perhaps an ironic twist in Mckeel’s social life is that once meeting his father, he found out he was a Mason as well.
“He’s learned a lot from it”, Dawson said. “Different reasons bought us to the Masonic lodge and I think it has bettered both of us for going through that.”
Mckeel, a public relations major, describes himself as being reserved but having a big heart when it comes to his friends.
“He has been through a lot of stuff,” McSweeney said. “He has been though a lot of rough times in his life but if you were to meet him on the street and you were in need, he would give you the shirt right off his back.”
While it was a big transition in coming to Greenville, according to Mckeel, he is glad he made the decision to come. When he is not busy with school work or the three organizations of which he is a member, he works at America’s Mattress where he delivers beds to customers.
Mckeel also happens to be an avid sports fan. He played golf, football, and basketball in high school and is currently engaging in mixed martial arts. He doesn’t train when school is in session though, and is scheduled to have surgery on his shoulder in February.
It’s obvious that Mckeel wasn’t handed the best deal of cards early in life, but he has come out a stronger person, according to all those that know him.
“A lot of people make their own beds, but he didn’t make his”, Dawson said. “He had to live in it the whole time he was growing up.”
“He could have been weak and said, ‘I have a chip on my shoulder, I’ve had this, this and this to happen to me and I don’t care’ but he didn’t”, Dawson added. “But he didn’t seem to go down that road; he seemed to take the other one.”
Filed under: Classmate Profiles, Spring 2008