LIFE: Uche Eke, The Young Nigerian Gymnast Making A Name For Himself

Uche Devon Eke is a Nigerian-American Gymnast born on 12 August 1997 to Mr. and Mrs. Daniel & Tara Eke. He had a passion for flipping at an early age which made his mother enroll him in gymnastics to channel his innate athleticism into a safer environment.

Education

He attended Our Lady of Good Counsel for his high school education and went ahead to further at Michigan where he acquired a degree in Computer Science with an aggregate of  4.0 GPA in his UX design studies.

Eke earned a Margaret Mann Award recognizing exceptional academic ability and professional promise ⁠— all while training with Michigan Gymnastics to represent Nigeria in the 2020 Olympics.

With his illustrious career as a student-athlete now behind him, Uche has valuable insight to share with other Wolverines who aspire to build a multifaceted legacy. 

So after learning how to balance competition with coursework while earning his BSE in computer science engineering, Eke decided to stick around and go for a master’s at Michigan after his senior year ended in 2019. 

At first,  he was only interested in applying to the master’s program in Computer Science Engineering ⁠until he started examining his goals and talking to professors in both the Master’s of Science in Engineering (MSE) and Master’s of Science in Information (MSI) programs. 

Career

While focusing on his academics in school, he participated in extra curriculum activities and came out excellently well. Below are some of his feats:

Scored a 13.700 on parallel bars against Illinois (March 12) at Huff Hall

Tallied a 12.500 on pommel horse at Calle Julio Perez Irizarry (March 5) in Puerto Rico

Competed on both pommel horse and parallel bars at Stanford Tri-Meet (Feb. 6)

In his first time competing for the maize and blue tallied an 11.800 on pommel horse and an 11.850 mark on parallel bars at Windy City 

Earned a career-high 14.150 on the high bar against UIC

Accomplishments

Now at 23, the young Eke has grown in the sport and is now the face of gymnastics in Nigeria being the first athlete to win a gold medal at the African Games in the sport for the West African nation.

Uche Eke has formed the nexus between education and sports which is what America and Europe preach, graduating with a first-class from the University of Michigan while also excelling in gymnastics.