Hard Work, Not Football Defines Notre Dame Target Mac Markway's Family
The Markway family’s history with football goes back generations.
“My grandfather was a big running back at the University of Missouri in the 1930s,” Matt Markway explains. “His brother played linebacker at Florida. Then, we skipped a generation and it came to me.”
Matt Markway played tight end at Iowa. While his brother, Nathan, played soccer in college, Nathan’s son, Kyle, played tight end at South Carolina and has been picked up by the Broncos after two years with the Browns.
“So, we've got a lot of football in the blood, for sure,” Matt says.
Matt’s son, Mac Markway a top tight end in the Class of 2023, is just the latest, but the sport is not what defines the family.
“My dad was a wounded, Purple Heart Vietnam soldier, Recon,” Matt says. “He lost his leg in Vietnam.
“We all learned from him. He never made an excuse his whole life, so we kind of built upon that. He helped build the family business and never had excuses. We've lived by that motto.”
Bert Markway passed away two years ago. Matt and Nathan now run Markway Construction, the third generation to run the company their grandfather began almost 80 years ago.
“We're just all about hard work,” Matt says. “Whatever you do, just do it right and do it hard. We have a blue-collar mentality.”
Even in a family packed with athletes – he has an uncle on the other side of the family who played at Ohio State – Mac stands out.
“Mac is the most gifted in the whole family athletically,” his father says.
He remembers Mac being in seventh grade and claiming that he could dunk a basketball. Matt didn’t believe him, so Mac made his father bring him to the courts immediately.
“He went up and dunked the first rep,” Matt recalls. “I stood there thinking, ‘Yeah, he is different.’”
And he’s tough.
Mac played a good portion of his freshman season with two broken wrists. Not knowing they were broken, he simply taped them tight before each game. Finally, after the season, he went to the doctor to get them checked out. His father thought maybe one was broken and was almost healed, but not both…at least until the doctor said, “We’ve never seen anything like this,” and confirmed they were both broken.
“I wasn't always easy on him for sure,” Matt laughs. “He's a tough kid. He's a football player. That's the main thing. As gifted as he is, he's a football player.”
But none of the on-court or on-field exploits have gone to the De Smet High School standout’s head.
“He has those blue-collar ethics to go with it,” Matt says. “I always told him since he was a little guy, 'Whenever anybody ever talks about you Mac, I just want to hear you're a good guy. That's it, I just want to hear that you're a good guy.’”
And now, Matt hears it all of the time, especially from the parents of underclassmen at De Smet.
“About how Mac spends two minutes with their freshman kid,” says Matt. “It's not a big deal to Mac, but he's starting to realize it means a lot to these other kids. He's just a good guy, just a great guy. He's tough as nails. I'm just very proud of him.
“It means so much to hear that he showed a kid around De Smet. He's just a very level-headed, down to earth kid. As a parent, when you teach something and then you see that he just grabbed onto it and just went with it, there’s great satisfaction.”