• Participated in four intervarsity sports; fencing, volleyball, swimming, and basketball while an undergraduate student.
• Received the Bakewell Trophy in 1949 as the University's most outstanding female athlete.
• Received the Lord Strathcona Trust Medal for physical training (1949).
• Awarded the University's First-Class Standing prize for high scholarship in 1950 while competing on three Panda teams.
• Had a distinguished academic career in the area of physical growth and motor development, first at the University of British Columbia and then at the University of California at Berkeley.

Helen Eckert was born in Yugoslavia, but at the age of five years moved to Edmonton. She graduated from Eastwood High School in 1943 and received both a Bachelor of Education degree and a Master's degree in 1953 from the University of Alberta. Her Doctorate degree was received from the University of Wisconsin in 1961.

During her undergraduate years at the University of Alberta, Helen was a member of the intervarsity basketball, swimming, volleyball and fencing teams. In 1949, she was awarded the Bakewell Trophy, as the outstanding female athlete at Alberta having met the requirements of the trophy by displaying "true sportsmanship and outstanding athletic participation". As well that year, she was awarded the Lord Strathcona Trust Medal for Physical Training. In 1950 Helen achieved the First Class Standing Prize for high scholarship despite competing for three intervarsity teams.

After graduation from the University of Alberta, Helen taught and coached at the junior and senior high school level. She accepted a position on the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1955 where she taught physical education and coached basketball, synchronized swimming and volleyball. In 1962, she coached the Ladies Western Canadian Volleyball Champions. An appointment, in 1963, to the University of California at Berkeley led to a distinguished career as teacher, researcher, and writer in the areas of physical growth and motor development. The same qualities that resulted in her success as an athlete and coach, enabled her to become an influential and widely respected leader in her profession.