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Michael "Mike" Schmeck

Oct 30, 1990 — Jul 24, 2026

 
Michael Leo Schmeck was born on October 30, 1990, in Plano, Texas. He died unexpectedly on July 24, 2026 suffering from complications related to heat stroke. Michael was survived by his parents Anthony and Mary Ellen, his brother Anthony III and his spouse Marika, his sister Jessica and her spouse Derek Bannasch, his four nephews James, Andrew, Joseph and Godson Matthew and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins scattered all over the country.
 
A funeral Mass will be held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church on Tuesday, August 25, at 1:00PM, followed by a reception in the church hall immediately afterwards.
 
Michael was a teacher and a baseball coach at John Paul II High School and the family has gracefully asked that in lieu of sending flowers, a donation be made in his honor at John Paul II to help support the baseball program. The link for donations is
 
https://givebutter.com/in-memory-of-mr-schmeck-o1fti8
 
"Heroes Get Remembered, But Legends Never Die"
( -The Sandlot)
 
Michael Leo Schmeck was born October 30, 1990, in Plano TX, (but forever considered himself a native of his family’s Pittsburgh, PA). Mike was baptized here at Seton by Fr. Duffy Gardner who held Mike up to present him to the 8:15am congregation, just like the scene from the Lion King!
 
Little Micketa-Moo immediately brought joy and whimsy to his family. Being a bit removed in years from his older siblings, he kept childhood mischief- plenty of it!- and laughter in the house for longer than we’d have otherwise had. Frequently, his family walked into the living room to find G.I. Joes or Ninja Turtles hanging inside the lamps or sprawled about the furniture. He watched his favorite movies, like Dinosaurs, Back to the Future, and The Sandlot, over and over, and would sprint throughout the living room as Benny pickled The Beast.
 
He was an attentive listener which gave him a wittiness well ahead of his age. On one particularly hot Texas car ride, he directed all of the air vents towards his car seat. His brother tried to suggest how pointing all of the air at him didn’t benefit all passengers in the car and implored him to be more of a “team player,” but Mike rebuked him with a stern, “AG: this is not a question of being a team player, this is a question of air!” In the most wonderful of ironies, Michael grew into the ultimate team player.
 
In fact, it was impossible to separate him from his family – he was always there whether he belonged or not (he always belonged). Jessica, his sister, fondly recalls several occasions when she and school friends would play games in the family game room and happened to notice someone poking their head around the ajar door… Mike, of course. And when AG and friends were shooting hoops in the driveway, there’s Mike ready to get in on the action! Jessica recalls how when she’d come home to visit from college, he’d sleep on the floor of her room and they would chat before falling asleep.
 
He especially loved connecting with his Pittsburgh Family during summers filled with Cousins Gone Wild sleepovers, running the track with Aunt Belle and sharing her blue Sports Belle water bottle, games of Spoons, watching the telethon, and more.
 
One of the classic memories that is constantly brought up whenever anyone is doing work around the house is the time Dad decided to stain the fence in the Texas sun. Dad loved to make these chores into family projects so the three children were called into action. Mike, being four years old, was given a very small spongy type brush which he immediately noticed was not the same size as everyone else’s. It was an indignity he would not bear. He tossed it away demanding a real person brush (his exact words were: “what is this little thing?”). Removing himself from the family project, he decided to ride his small tricycle- but rode straight into the deep end of the pool, after which his big brother AG fished him and his tricycle out. He then was rewarded with a real size brush which in attempting to use, knocked over the bucket of stain. A tale that has followed Mike for thirty years, especially around painting time.
 
Mom and Mike were inseparable, as he was now referred to as “Big Guy,” he would always find his way into her lap. Going to bed rituals took forever– after reading several books, Mom would then sing multiple lullabies to Mike, while Jes and AG, in their own bedrooms, would call out, “how many more?” kind of like “Goodnight, John Boy” scenes from The Waltons TV show. In another night of bedtime routine, AG had some chapped lips and came into Mike’s room to get some Vaseline. AG, lips smeared in Vaseline, asked, “Why do we keep the Vaseline in the top drawer anyway?” and toddler Mike replied, “It’s for butts!”
 
For whatever reason, Mike always managed to become the center of attention with his ability to bring light and levity to any situation. He made all sorts of mischief yet somehow never reaped any real consequences for them in a way that only the youngest sibling gets away with.
 
As Mike entered the young toddler stage, we went on a crowded car trip to visit Uncle Jeff and Aunt Kim’s family in San Antonio. In our Lincoln Continental were Mom, AG, Jes, Aunt Marybelle, cousins Gabe and Amanda and Mike. For a solid 1 ½ hours Mike was screaming so long and loud that finally Aunt Marybelle said, “Let’s just go back to Plano - - nothing is worth this!”
 
We went to Hawaii for our cousin Beth’s wedding. We went up to the top of the Haleakala volcano to watch the sunrise and wanted to ride bikes back down the hill. We first had to find a company that would rent a bike to a ten-year-old. In truth, Mike had absolutely no trouble flying down the mountain on his bike while Mom terrifyingly rode the brakes the whole way down.
 
Because of the age gap between Mike and his siblings, Mike got to do his “college visits” way earlier than most. During his visit to UT-Austin, he would creep from tree to tree for “safe cover” since he had watched a story about the sniper at the UT Tower. Later, in the school gifted program, Mike wrote and illustrated his visit to UT-Austin in a story. During siblings’ weekend with Jes at the University of Michigan, they were also able to drive over to Pittsburgh for the weekend and join cousins for a football game. That was the road trip where they learned just how far apart turnpike exits were spaced- a distance far enough that Mike changed the lyrics of LeAnn Rhimes’s “I hope you dance” to “I’ll pee my pants.”
 
As Mike advanced through school, his athletic abilities along with his intelligence helped him grow into quite the renaissance man. He excelled at every sport he attempted and/or played whether it be football, basketball, hockey, or his favorite sport– baseball. His brother AG notes how Mike would torment/amuse him in street hockey, burying shots behind his hapless older brother despite the nine-year age gap. The shooting barrage only stopped when Bocce, a street cat that Mike adopted, would get stuck in the net and needed Mike’s skill to get untangled.
 
Dad recalls the time when Mike was six and he and a few neighbors decided to play baseball in the street in front of the house. Dad was occupied with a chore when he heard a loud crashing sound. Dad came to the front yard where neighbor Mr. Diaz advised him that Mike had just launched a great line drive, unfortunately into our dining room window. (Since it only shattered the first of the two-pane window, Dad decided to clean up the mess and to NOT replace the window just yet as he was proud of the hit!) Fortunately, his ability to smack a baseball only grew, earning him the nickname “The Rock”, and Dad took great pleasure chasing down every home run he hit in high school and in summer ball. Mom even tracked down his walk-off grand slam in a tournament in Burkburnett, TX. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention his ability in the outfield to track down fly balls robbing a hitter of a perceived shot in the gap. And God help the runner who attempted to test his arm!
 
Besides his athletic prowess, Mike enjoyed playing the French horn, writing creative stories (which always seemed to involve the family or stories about gorillas inspired by a particular family member), and illustrating all the many things that delighted him– cartoons, animals, and most often, places he visited with family, like Pittsburgh. Even in the email/text era, Mike always took the time to thoughtfully handwrite thank you notes in his impeccable penmanship. And in an era of rampant consumerism, Mike was a champion of the simple things and bastion of authenticity. His favorite shirt to this day was a twenty-year-old University of Arizona jersey his cousin Stacy bought him. It had become completely tattered as he wore it every day on his long jogs. Mom bought him an identical new jersey but he declined it– as it wasn’t the jersey his cousin gave him. His drawers were full of knickknacks his siblings had cast away, because things that reminded him of his family, no matter how modest, carried the greatest value to him. His closet held pictures and letters from people he cared about, and who cared about him.
 
After high school, Mike had his pick of colleges and he decided to enroll in the US Naval Academy, where he was excited to play D-1 baseball. However, after seriously injuring his shoulder during plebe drills, he pivoted toward his true passion, becoming an educator and coach. After he graduated from the University of Texas – Dallas, he eventually began his present role as a history teacher and coach at his alma-mater John Paul II. Mike was extremely proud to be an alumnus of JPII. He and his social studies department head, Jeremy Morse, bonded over similar philosophies about the JPII dress code, and they together modeled professionalism by always wearing a dress shirt and tie– and “Pink shirt Wednesday” was sacred. The two of them were faithful about showing up and wearing their Red Blazers with the JPII emblem while ushering at every school wide special event!
 
He knew and cared about his students, listened empathetically, and savored building young minds. Dad remembers Mike telling him about the time he asked a student what his extracurricular activities were and could see that the student was reluctant to admit to Coach Schmeck that he was in the band. Mike looked at him and informed him that both his sister and her husband were musicians and music teachers at an elementary school and college level. And that he himself was in his middle school band and played the French horn. Mike said the student smiled and appeared to walk a little taller down the hall.
 
Dad seems to recall that in his tenure at JPII, he missed just one day of class in his entire teaching career. He took his job and responsibilities seriously. He and his sister Jessica, also an educator, frequently swapped teacher stories via text and he’d tell her of when the students caught him in a 6-7 moment (which happened a lot!), the time he wore a shark costume at a pep rally, and more. And both Mom and Dad will never forget how respectfully fond he was towards Ms. J, an impactful teacher of Mike’s when he was a student and a history department peer later in his career. Mike shared with Dad that he would tell a number of students, some of whom were baseball players, that if he ever heard of them goofing off in Ms. J’s class or giving her a hard time that he would run their butts until they …...!
 
Other JPII memories he shared were about students frantically rushing into his room in order to use his printer to meet assignment completion deadlines. Then there were “cohort meeting days” and word would spread like wildfire, that Coach Schmeck had again brought in a batch of Mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. He didn’t even get to unlock his classroom door. Mike told us about the time he got to chat with Bishop Burns, a Pittsburgh native. Once when the two of them were the first to arrive early for a school meeting, the Bishop saw the Pirates emblem on Mike’s key chain as Mike opened the door for him. Another time he and the Bishop spent a half hour chatting in a room before the graduation ceremony.
 
As years passed and he became an uncle to four nephews, Mike wrote letters to his sister saying how pleased he was about amassing his very own baseball team. He was tickled pink upon hearing about the arrival of his fourth nephew, his Godson Matthew, who not only shared his middle name but also bore the initials “MLB.” His nephews especially cherish memories of playing ping pong on the table he set up for them in his garage, the time they dog-sat Arya together, the time he took them to play ball on the fields at JPII, and nights of pool volleyball at Camp Schmeck.
 
When school was out for the year, rather than simply relaxing, etc. (as everyone seems to think that’s all a teacher does with the summer break), Mike coached summer baseball travel teams while also sticking to his daily routine of ten-mile runs. Our retired Dad was especially grateful for the time he and Mike spent together nearly every Thursday through Sunday, as Mike had tasked Dad to be the team’s Game Changer score keeper. As Dad has reminded us, he cherished and looked forward to the hours driving to and from the games, during which time they would chat together about whatever was on their minds. Dad really enjoyed watching his son the Coach in action. One of Dad’s favorite moments occurred during a game where an umpire blew a call and Dad started bellowing at the ump from the dugout, to which Mike, from the 3rd base coaching box, smiled and nicely told his Dad, “I got this.”
 
Even with his crazy baseball schedule, Mike always made time to run, regardless of whether there was a game on his schedule for that day. Running was a quiet time for him and his thoughts. Sadly, and to the absolute eternal frustration of everyone who cared about him, but true to his inherently stubborn Schmeck nature, Mike insisted on running regardless of the weather, even running in the most intense heat of the day. His last run on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 22 induced severe heat stroke to which he ultimately succumbed on the morning of Friday, July 24. In a bittersweet turn of fate, his whole family was in town for his final days. As it came to be, he was surrounded by people who adored him, told him how proud they were of him, and the final words he heard from every member of his family were “I love you, Mike.”
 
Mike was an organ donor and we are pleased to have been informed that his corneas and other tissues will live on in others.
 
As a “God wink” moment, our backyard has been visited by a juvenile yellow-crested night heron. His visits started a week before Mike passed away. Every night Mike would go out back and talk with “Victor,” the name we had given to it. Victor continues to visit every night, some nights pacing on the spa, bringing us comfort and a smile.
 
Michael died an educator and brought his family together. He taught us that it’s never too late or too hard to help someone, and that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is accept the love of others. He was our Hero, and his light and life is our Legend. May the joy and love he brought into our world never die. And Mike, we’ll meet you in the dugout in the sky.