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McBride takes over at Cairo

BY SCOTT MEES, THE SOUTHERN

Cairo High School recently hired a new boys basketball coach, and it's a familiar name to University of Illinois hoops fans.

Rich McBride will take over the Pilots' varsity program after coaching as a volunteer assistant last season at his alma mater, Lanphier High School in Springfield.

McBride played guard for the Illini for four years (2003-07) and did get in the game during the 2005 NCAA National Championship game against North Carolina. He averaged 10 points per game during his senior season at Illinois.

"This is a great opportunity for me," McBride said. "It all happened kind of fast, and it's a great program, and I'm looking forward it."

Tommy Ellis began last season as the head coach of the Pilots, but he suffered a major stroke early in the season and did not return. Assistant coach Lorenzo Duncan took over for the remainder of the season.

The Pilots will have to replace 6-foot-7 power forward Arthur Williams, who was the team's dominant post presence.

"I hear there are kids 6-4 or 6-5 that don't even play ball," McBride said. "We're going to try to get that squared away. We are going to try to do our best to put it all together."

McBride was a 3-point specialist for the Illini and nailed 216 triples during his career, but he'll be focusing on defense first at Cairo.

"You have to have defense first and be tough," McBride said. "I'm an offensive guy, too. I love to score, but defense is the biggest key."

McBride did say the Pilots will get out and run on offense quite a bit as well.

Coming to a new program for his first varsity position will be a challenge for McBride, but it's something he's been thinking about for a while.

"Ever since high school it's something I always thought about," McBride said. "I talked to the coaches about it a lot."

His former college head coach at Illinois, Bruce Weber, is someone McBride would like have conversation with.

"I talked to him very briefly, and I'd like to meet with him face to face and kind of pick his brain," McBride said. "But everything has been happening so fast right now."

Jim Drew, Cairo's athletic director, was also pleased with the hire and hopes McBride will draw up even more interest in the basketball program.

"Cairo is getting a qualified person with a lot of basketball experience," Drew said. "I've always heard of Rich being a great player both at the high school and college level. I'm sure he'll be a strong influence on our student-athletes."

Rich McBride
Player Biography

From the Springfield Journal-Register

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Former Lanphier star McBride named Cairo basketball coach

By DAVE KANE (dave.kane@sj-r.com)
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

As a basketball player, Rich McBride has experienced the thrill of playing in a high school state championship game and an NCAA national title contest.

But as a first-time high school head coach, McBride is not starting in a glamorous scenario. He’s going to the southernmost tip of Illinois in hopes of building winning attitudes in a town that needs a boost.

McBride, a 2003 Lanphier High School graduate who went on to play at the University of Illinois, was approved Thursday as the new varsity boys basketball coach at Cairo.

It will be the first salaried high school coaching job for the 25-year-old McBride, who was a volunteer assistant the past two years at Lanphier — where he helped lead the Lions to a Class AA runner-up finish in 2002 before heading to Illinois. He was a sophomore on the Fighting Illini’s national runner-up team in 2005.

He’s currently coaching the Springfield-based Illinois Blue Demons 16-under AAU boys team.

“Going back to middle school, I’ve always wanted to be a coach,” McBride said Friday. “I knew when I got done playing, that’s what I wanted to do. I still felt like that after college.”

McBride will take over after the Cairo Pilots, a Class 1A team in the four-class system, went through a difficult 2009-10 campaign. Their head coach at the outset, Tommy Ellis, suffered a severe stroke in mid-December and was replaced on an interim basis by assistant Lorenzo Duncan.

Cairo finished 11-13, falling to Mounds Meridian 87-72 in the Class 1A Mounds Regional.

“It’s going to be a young team; I think they lost five or six seniors from last year,” McBride said. “We’ll probably have a lot of freshmen and sophomores.”

McBride’s AAU team, which is preparing for national competition next week, includes several players from southern Illinois. He said one of them was familiar with Jim Drew, the former Calvary Academy and Sacred Heart-Griffin boys coach who’s now athletics director and girls basketball coach at Cairo.

“It was last week when coach Drew called me,” said McBride, who was recommended to the Cairo school board by Drew and the rest of the Cairo administration. “Word spread pretty fast.”

McBride knows the challenges of his new job will go beyond basketball.

Shrinking enrollment

Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Cairo has gone through a steady decline the last 40 years. The unemployment rate is high, and the population — along with school enrollment — has dropped significantly.

When the Cairo Pilots took third place in the 1981 Class A State Tournament, the school enrollment was 351. When they finished third again in 1993, it had slipped to 310. When Cairo took fourth at Peoria in 2003, it had fallen to 216.

As of last fall, Cairo had just 163 students. In addition, several talented basketball players in recent years have left Cairo in favor of larger cities and schools such as Carbondale, Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Paducah, Ky.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but I’ve been facing challenges my whole life,” McBride said. “I just look at this as another one. I visited down there, and the people were great. I know there’s a lot of pressure for high school coaches down there, but nobody’s going to put more pressure on me than I’ll put on myself.”

McBride does not have his teaching certification, but he said he’s been told he will have another job within the school district beyond his coaching duties. He’s also going to assist with the Pilots’ baseball and track teams, he said.

He’ll also have a familiar face assisting him in basketball next season: 2001 Lanphier graduate Marques Warfield, who assisted Doug Collins with the Lanphier girls team. Warfield also has coached with McBride on the AAU level.

Lanphier head coach Chuck Shanklin said McBride’s experiences as a player should help him as a coach. Shanklin said McBride has had several strong coaching influences, including Illinois head coach Bruce Weber and Illini assistant Wayne McLain.

“We had a meeting yesterday,” Shanklin said Friday. “I told Rich, ‘You have a lot to offer these young men.’