A Knight to Remember: Shane McBride

By Ray Popkess

 

In every city, there are people known as “pillars” who hold up vital aspects of community, education and philanthropy in order to create a thriving ecosystem. The Triad School District has produced a multitude of individuals who give back to the community that gave them so much. Today, we turn our attention to a former Knight born and raised in Troy and one of the more physically and mentally tough individuals who continues to build up strength in himself as well as the community he resides in. Shane McBride is the owner of CrossFit 557 in Collinsville and his journey, like many other athletes, began on the field.

While his high school and college athletic career shined on the football field, McBride was a premier example of a young athlete that was always seeking out the next challenge.

“Growing up, I played baseball, soccer and basketball,” he recalled. “We had a Troy Reds team that was so much fun to be a part of. All of those coaches were big mentors of mine and shaped me into who I am today.”

When asked what his favorite sport was growing up by coaches and mentors, McBride always answered the same way: “Whatever is in season.”

After playing soccer his whole life, McBride was introduced to football in eighth grade during Triad Middle School’s inaugural season led by coaches Mike Speer and Rich Beck in the year 2000. At the time, Kellin Johns was entering the Triad School District in McBride’s class after his father, Ric, had just accepted a coaching position at the high school. Ric had a heavy influence on getting eighth graders to try out for football and is now considered one of the legendary coaches of the Metro East region.

With a soccer background and no option, other than the Collinsville Raiders, to play football up until the eighth grade program was conceived, McBride sought out a new challenge and had an affinity for kicking. Naturally, he decided early on that it was his calling and dreamt of doing so in the NFL.

McBride and his eighth grade team led Triad to a 5-1 record in their first season, with their lone loss coming to Granite City (Coolidge).

“We really didn’t know much about football,” he said. “A lot of our team were first-year players and we thought to ourselves, ‘If we really stick this out, we could really do something good.’”

The following summer was the diving board McBride needed to jump head-first into his high school athletic career. Kenny Deatherage was the newly appointed freshman football coach, and was also the name McBride associated with the lore of Triad football.

“Even though I was playing soccer at a young age, I would always go to the football games because my sister was a cheerleader,” recalled McBride. “Kenny and [his] teams had such great seasons and I always remember hearing his name [over the PA]…So kind of like how [Paul] Bassler introduced Kenny to the weight room, Kenny introduced the weight room to all of our football team in eighth grade. He was getting us in there to lift weights and build team comradery and chemistry and those are things I’ll never ever forget.”

Legacies continue to be passed down through Triad with each graduating class and McBride touched on a moment he’s gone through recently with a cousin of his, Will Kelly, graduating this year.

“What’s cool about it now is that he tells me that he’s seen the 1,000 Pound Club pictures in the weight room. He’ll tell me, ‘I’m trying to get to your back squat’ or ‘I’m trying to reach your deadlift.’ I’ve been out of school 20 years and now I have my cousin telling me, ‘I’m trying to get to your numbers’ or ‘I’ve passed your numbers’ and that’s super cool.”

As McBride progressed through his high school career, he was taking each season as they came. A three-sport athlete in football, basketball and baseball, he changed his favorite sport along with the weather.

“I didn’t have a particular favorite at the time, but to this day, my favorite is indoor soccer, which is crazy,” he laughed. “I loved kicking the ball but I did not know what college looked like for me. I knew I was pretty good for high school but I didn’t know how that would translate.”

Coach Bassler spearheaded his players’ recruiting as he always did, and shared with McBride that a couple Division II schools wanted him for his leg, one being Missouri Southern State University in Joplin.

“[They] allowed me to come down for a kicking tryout with five other high school kickers…on a weekend in January…when it was snowing,” he recalled. “Adam Vinatieri for New England was THE kicker at the time, so I always watched all of his videos. I’ll always remember him kicking in the snow, so I thought to myself ‘I can do what Adam Vinatieri did.’ I think I made 29 out of 30 field goals that day.”

As McBride was leaving the tryout, he got a call in the car as his family was approaching Springfield, Missouri. “[The coaches] never told us that we were going to get a scholarship, but the phone rings as we get to Springfield and they offered me one and wanted me to commit right away.”

McBride teetered between taking the offer at Missouri Southern and staying home to play at McKendree, where he was offered to both kick and run the football on offense.

“I took the offer at Missouri Southern and [ended up] getting 2nd Team All-Conference as a freshman behind an All-American. Unfortunately, my coach ended up passing away during the season and he was the reason I committed there.”

In an article published by Yahoo Sports in 2025, MSSU Head Coach John Ware was described as “larger than life” and lived by the mantra: strive every day to get 1% better. McBride and players on that roster still hold that close to their hearts to this day.

After some staff turnover in the offseason, McBride knew it was time to come home. “My uncle reached out to Coach [Carl] Poelker and Coach [Jeff] Fisher and the rest of the staff at McKendree and that’s when I transitioned back into running the ball.”

During his junior season, McBride joined Bally Total Fitness in Fairview Heights and ended up becoming a personal trainer there through the next year.

“I had finished up my career with sports, but I was always in the weight room and then I did my internship in Troy at American Fitness. After I got done with that, there was no real career path for personal trainers in 2010, but I always wanted to build a strength and conditioning gym. I didn’t know what that was going to look like because I didn’t even take one business class.”

A friend of McBride’s suggested he head over to Club Fitness where there would be more clientele. He spent two years there, becoming an Elite Personal Trainer.

Landing on a few stepping stones along the way, an old teammate of his at McKendree that now owns MetroEast Health and Fitness suggested McBride try CrossFit. “I just fell in love with it because it was the closest thing to coaching strength and conditioning that I ever had. I spent three years at Club Fitness, spent a year at CrossFit Metro East and then I took the leap and opened my gym in January 2014.

“In college, I got my physical education degree and my health and wellness promotion degree with a minor in coaching and sports psychology, so I always had the knack for helping people. I didn’t know if I was going to be [coaching people] in the sport of baseball, football, basketball, soccer or if it was going to be the sport of fitness. Now, that’s what I do to this day. We do 1-on-1 training, we do group training, we have a ladies’ boot camp. We just got done with a kids’ strength and conditioning class. The cool part about it is that I feel like I’m right where I was meant to be,” shared McBride.

While owning his gym, McBride took to competing in the CrossFit Games and went to Regionals for six years.

“I always wanted to continue raising the bar for myself and I saw such a great thing in CrossFit and their methodology. While I was doing that, a lot of my clientele just wanted to become better, so I reinforced the tagline: 1% better every day.”

Being from Troy, McBride saw an opportunity to nurture a sense of community by generating a space where working individuals could come together and grind through a workout.

“What I learned through team athletics and what I learned in the weight room translated into team chemistry and having fun. It’s all the same. We’re in a group setting, and even though we might all have different goals, we’re going through it together as a team.”

When asked about what he looks forward to, McBride talks about his “why.”

“Walking through the doors each and every day makes me grateful to help our staff and our community have fun while working out. Not to make it feel like it’s a chore but guiding entire families, sometimes, to bettering themselves. My ultimate goal now is to continue making generational impacts on families that are seeking to get better through fitness. It’s very humbling to be training three different generations of one family, for example.”

Outside of the gym, McBride enjoys spending time with his wife, Krista, five year-old daughter, Vivian, and two year-old son, Logan. “I’m trying to soak in as many hours and days that I have with them while they’re young. I’ve heard ‘the days are long and years are short.’ I blink, I feel like we just had our daughter and she’s five,” he joked. “I love spending time with them. Balancing being an entrepreneur and prioritizing my family is not easy but possible with such a supportive significant other like my wife. We make a great team.”

Looking back on his playing career, McBride shared that there’s only one thing he wished he learned earlier. “You only fail forward. Entrepreneurship and baseball helped me a lot with that. If you only get out six times out of 10, you’re a darn good baseball player.”

If there are any former Knights you deem worthy of being featured in a future ‘A Knight to Remember,’ send inquiries to us at 1200 12th St. in Highland, Illinois 62249. If you’d prefer to send a digital inquiry, email our sports reporter, Ray Popkess, at [email protected] and he will respond to you promptly.