The most pivotal moment in the history of Seton Hall athletics wasn’t a basketball game or a coaching search.

It was a loyal alum writing a check.

Without it, the Pirates don’t get into the Big East Conference at the ground floor — a move that led to the 1989 Final Four run, sparked a build-up of the campus and permanently elevated the university’s profile.

The alum, Bill Eyres, died Thursday. The Colts Neck resident was 81 years old.

“Later on, it became easy to be a Seton Hall supporter,” P.J. Carlesimo said at a 2014 banquet honoring Eyres. “When it was not easy, that’s when Bill Eyres was always there.”

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If Seton Hall has a Mount Rushmore, Eyres is on it — along with Carlesimo, Richie Regan and Honey Russell.

“When you think of all of the people who have contributed to Seton Hall’s incredible history, Bill would be at the top of that list,” Seton Hall athletics director Pat Lyons said Sunday. “His passion, support and dedication were second to none and he will be deeply missed.”

Here’s the story about that check, as told to me in 2014 by Matt Regan, Richie’s son:

In the late 1970s, as the Big East was being formed, commissioner Dave Gavitt wanted a New Jersey presence. Rutgers wasn’t interested, so Richie Regan (then the athletics director) made an 11th-hour push to get the Hall on board.

The deadline for the entry fee was bearing down. Regan had to come up with $25,000 fast. That’s the equivalent of $100,000 today. He went to the university’s top administrators.

“They said, ‘That’s great, but guess what, we don’t have the money,’” Matt Regan said. “Then my father made the call to Bill Eyres and Bill said, ‘How much do you need?’ The rest was history.’”

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Eyres was a Seton Hall man all the way. He graduated from Seton Hall Prep (1954) and the university (1958), marrying his sweetheart Carol Hedenburg while in college. In 1960 he opened an Avis Rent A Car franchise in Matawan. The business took off under his leadership.

For decades, Carlesimo said, Seton Hall assistants drove Eyres’ cars on recruiting trips and racked up more than a few parking tickets that wound up on Avis’ tab.

“I can’t tell you how many times I apologized to Bill and told him it wouldn’t happen again,” Carlesimo said. “Early on when we were struggling, at least once a week Bill would come in and ask if I didn’t want to come down to Matawan and sell cars with him.”

In 1981, when Vince Zinagra co-founded the Seton Hall Booster Club along with Richie Regan and Ray Lopez, his first call was to Eyres.

The response: “How can I help?”

The Booster Club is still going strong today. It sponsored the banquet honoring Eyres three years ago. Eyres’ health was declining then, and there was hardly dry eye in the room as Carlesimo spoke, his voice cracking with emotion several times.

That’s because Eyres was much more than a wealthy guy who wrote checks. He was generous in the full sense of the word. There are countless tales of his kindnesses, from helping students get into law school to taking the pep band out to dinner. This was not a caricature booster who threw around demands with his money; Bill Eyres liked helping people and preferred to do so quietly.

“What he’s done for Seton Hall is just a fraction of what he’s done for other people,” Matt Regan told me that night in 2014. “It’s not just about giving money so Seton Hall could get into the Big East. “He’s one of the most generous men I’ve ever met.”

A funeral mass will be celebrated on Tuesday, 10:30 a.m. at St. Mary Parish in Colts Neck.

Read the full obituary here: William J. Eyres, 81.

Staff writer Jerry Carino: jcarino@njpressmedia.com