High Profile: DAVE ECHOLS

On a recent steamy Wednesday morning, Dave Echols stands on the balcony outside his office dropping water balloons on unsuspecting youngsters waiting to get into the RiverDogs baseball game.

It is Big Splash Day, after all, and no one is safe.

"If I went out there, my staff would find me pretty quick," Echols says from the safety of his office at Riley Park, where he spends long days as the general manager of Charleston's Class A team.

"This time of year, we take up residency here at 360 Fishburne," he says. "That's why it's important to incorporate fun into what we do."

It's not unusual for Echols to work 12 or 14 hours a day at the ballpark on days the team has home games. And sometimes, those home stretches last eight days.

When the team is away, though, he gets a little bit of a break, working more of a typical 9-to-5 business day.

"That gives us a chance to have a little personal time, a life outside of baseball," he says.

If he travels to away games, it's as a fan.

"There really is not a business purpose to travel with the team," he says. "Instead, when they're gone, it's a chance to recoup and get ready to go again when they come back."

A home run

Echols grew up in Ohio, playing whatever sport was in season, but he was partial to baseball.

"My dad was a high school teacher, coach and administrator, so I grew up around sports," he says. "It became my passion."

When he went to the University of Dayton in 1988, his intention was to be an accountant, but he quickly switched to something he loved more: sports management.

After graduation, he worked in Fayetteville, N.C.; Kinston, N.C.; Columbus, Ohio; and back in Kinston before learning of the job opportunity in Charleston. He was hired in late 1998 as the RiverDogs' assistant general manager.

"I had heard of Mike (Veeck, RiverDogs president)," he says. "I didn't know him, but you can't help but know of him."

Veeck has a reputation in and out of the baseball world as a successful businessman who puts an emphasis on fun in the workplace. In fact, his business plan starts with "Fun is Good," and he has written a book with the same title.

Echols quickly learned that working for the Goldklang Group, which owns the RiverDogs and a handful of other teams, is different from working for just about anyone else.

"It was a different mentality," he says. "I was used to crunching numbers and no laughing, no feet up on the desk, no horseplay. Just count the money at the end of the night and that's it. I was enjoying it because I didn't know better, but this job burns people out. Then I came here, and working for Mike was a 180 from what I was used to."

(Not) like Mike

But Dave Echols is no Mike Veeck.

In fact, they seem more like opposites. While the dark-haired, goateed former hippie Veeck is known as a wacky funster with a larger-than-life personality, the clean-shaven and tidy Echols is more private, reserved.

"A lot of people would say I'm not Mike," he says. "Nobody can be like Mike. He's creative and he believes that 'Fun is Good.' My job is to let you work under that mentality, but I am not going to do cartwheels down the hall."

Like Veeck, Echols has a good — if quieter — sense of humor. Recently, Veeck has turned Echols into a bit of a local celebrity in the team's advertising campaign.

"That's all Mike's doing," Echols says. "I would prefer to be a little more low-key and behind the scenes, but Mike is currently in the process of making me more high profile."

It's no surprise that Veeck pens the commercials himself, with Echols as the straight man.

"Typically, they are Mike making fun of me," Echols says. "That seems to be going over well with fans."

It also has made him more recognizable at the park.

"People love to see me walking around, and I love being out there," he says. "Unfortunately, I don't get to watch much of the game."

He often is stopped by fans who want to talk. While most comments are positive, not all are.

"If fans are happy, I want to know it. If not, I still want to know," he says. "With 4,500 fans a night, somebody's going to be unhappy about something. I don't dodge questions or complaints."

Hard work

Another thing Echols and Veeck have in common is their penchant for hard work.

"Mike can outwork anybody," says Echols, admitting that he, too, has a tendency to put in long hours.

In 2001, Echols went to Massachusetts as general manager of the new Brockton Rox, also operated by the Goldklang Group, returning to Charleston as general manager in 2004.

Many folks don't realize what his job entails.

"I am involved in everything in running the baseball team except the players," he says. "I don't decide who plays or who gets promoted. A lot of people don't realize that."

He is in charge of ticketing, advertising and marketing.

He also wraps hot dogs, works in the souvenir shop, slings T-shirts into the crowd and pulls the tarp over the field during rain delays.

"It's not just me," he says. "We all do everything and anything out there to help when needed."

Everyone also pitches in to come up with those wacky game promotions that Veeck was famous for even before he came to Charleston.

Often drawing national attention — positive and negative — to Charleston, zany promotions in the past few years have included Nobody Night (to set the lowest attendance record), National Laundry Day (fans invited to bring laundry, which was washed, dried and folded for them during the game) and Silent Night (no cheering).

"Mike raises the bar for us internally," Echols says. "We have meetings where we do brainstorming. Our office manager, groundskeeper, everybody is at those meetings. Mike's philosophy is inclusion, and the promotions are something we have fun with."

While he won't take total credit for it, Echols says June's "Go Back to Ohio" night, which encouraged fans to dress in Ohio paraphernalia for a game against Columbus, was one that got a lot of feedback.

"But sometimes, we look at a promotion and go, 'We tried too hard,' " he says of the flops. "And then we sit back and make fun of ourselves for coming up with it in the first place."

While many in minor league baseball are looking to make it to "the show," that's not Echols' goal although he would like to one day be president or part owner of a club.

"To leave Charleston and go work at a major league market is not in my game plan," he says. "I am the general manager of a team with a great fan base in a great facility. I am paid to work at a sports venue. It's a dream job. I love what I do and have fun while I do it."

And, after all, fun is good.

Brenda Rindge can be reached at 937-5713 or brindge@postandcourier.com.