Football, Wrestling
Favorite athlete: Tom Brady
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Pre-game speeches before games.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When the o-line pretended I was invisible and didn’t talk to me for a full week.
Music on playlist: 90s Rock
Future plans: Go to college
Words to live by: “Control your own destiny.”
One goal before turning 30: Create my own music
One thing people don’t know about me: I play lead guitar in a band.
By Mary Jane Souder
Galen Snyder has seen just about everything during his years on the sidelines, but the Pennsbury football coach admits that Shane McGurrin came up with a first.
“It’s funny – I think I gave the first pregame speech, and after that, Shane took over, and he would give the pregame speeches,” the Falcons’ coach said. “I would say, ‘Are you ready?’ He’d take the kids inside the locker room and give the pregame speech. That was pretty cool. I haven’t really had a player do that before, but he did that. The kids all respect him.”
For McGurrin, it felt perfectly natural.
“I guess it started with one of the first games,” he said. “I came out, and the words started flowing, and I was like, ‘I’m pretty good at this. These guys are getting fired up,’ so I just kept doing it game after game.
“That’s something I always looked forward to. It was more of a speech, firing them up in the pregame. Guys wouldn’t want me to skip that, and it kind of became part of the pregame ritual. I tried to brainstorm a bit beforehand, I tried to think of things to say and what would fire them up.”
Based on the Falcons’ results, it’s safe to say McGurrin’s talks were effective. The senior quarterback was a leader on and off the field for a Falcon squad that brought a 16-game losing streak into the season but experienced the kind of turnaround that literally was a case of worst to first.
“Having him break the kids down at the end of weight room sessions and things of that nature – I definitely saw leadership from that standpoint,” Snyder said.
After a season-opening loss to Coatesville – the 17th in a row in a streak dating back to 2019, Pennsbury reeled off nine straight wins and won sole possession of the SOL National Conference title.
“It was great,” said McGurrin, who also was the quarterback for last year’s 0-10 squad. “We went down, and you don’t want to see a program continue to go down because then it will just keep going, so to be that team that turns it around – hopefully, the program stays back on track – there’s no words to match it. That was the best athletic season of my life.”
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McGurrin grew up competing in sports, beginning with baseball, wrestling and soccer. He was the youngest of four siblings with one brother and two sisters.
“I always loved sports,” he said. “I grew up very active, I was always doing some type of physical activity, so I loved going out and playing.
“I have a big family. I said to my cousin who’s one year younger than me -- ‘As our little bloodline keeps going down, it seems like the kids keep getting better and better than the ones before us.’
“My brother did X and Y in high school, and now I’ve kind of topped that, but then my younger cousins – they’re definitely going to be on a different level when they’re in their senior year. I definitely feel like having that older brother presence helped me become a tougher person overall.”
At the age of nine, McGurrin began playing football at Lower Makefield, and it’s been pretty much football and wrestling since middle school.
On the gridiron, quarterback is McGurrin’s natural position, and he wasn’t accustomed to losing. His freshman team was undefeated. As a sophomore, McGurrin was the jayvee quarterback until an injury sidelined him for the season.
“The first or second game of the year, I got picked up and slammed and broke my collarbone,” he said. “So that put me out for the whole sophomore season.”
As a junior, McGurrin was behind center for a team that didn’t win a game.
“I had never been part of a program that was at such a struggling point,” he said. “It was kind of new for me to go into each game and just get beat down because it wasn’t the normal.
“I never went into games thinking we were losing. I went in competing and the results happened. It was tough on everyone on the team – going into school with kids saying, ‘Oh, another loss.’ I was like, ‘Wait till next year, wait till next year.’”
‘Next year’ – with veteran coach Galen Snyder back at the helm - turned out better than even McGurrin could have imagined.
“A lot of the guys who played last year, it was like, ‘Dang, this is what it’s like to lose,” he said. “It was a bad feeling, and at that point, you would think a lot of guys would start leaving the program, but that kind of sparked guys to come back and join, and the guys who were on the team didn’t want to repeat something like that.
“I think the level of competitiveness and the amount of work we were putting in was a lot greater than the year prior because we knew we were starting from square one, and we had to build up, and, of course, I have to give credit to the coaches. They pushed a much different philosophy than last year. We also had a lot more time in the preseason. Overall, working a lot harder and having more dedication the whole preseason – I think that’s what ended up paying off the most.”
McGurrin – who acknowledges he’s not necessarily a traditional quarterback – turned out to be a perfect fit for Snyder’s wing-t offense.
“With running some triple options, he had to make decisions on the fly out there, whether to give the ball, keep it, pitch it, whatever the case may be,” the Falcons’ coach said. “He didn’t always make the right reads, but he also did make the right read a lot of times.”
Snyder pointed to the CB West game – a 26-21 win – as an example of McGurrin at his best.
“CB West runs a lot of wing-t like we do, so we’re both pretty familiar with one another,” the Falcons’ coach said. “We asked him to do a lot of triple options in that game, and he came through for us big time. Not only with some of the runs that he made but just making the right decisions.
“Shane is a good player – he’s a tough kid. He’s a varsity wrestler. He’s got a lot of moxie.”
That moxie has served McGurrin well.
“With the type of offense we run – you think of a quarterback, and you kind of think maybe a little softer, a passer, but coming from wrestling, I’m used to being tough and doing those hard workouts,” McGurrin said. “I came to football and I kind of surprised people.
“I was more of a runner – running through people, a little more contact than a normal quarterback. I think that was the biggest translation – just being able to use the power I do have.”
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As for McGurrin’s wrestling career, he got his start with the Pennsbury Wrestling Club.
“All my uncles grew up wrestling, and they turned into coaches at Pennsbury,” he said. “I’ve kind of always been surrounded by wrestling.”
McGurrin laughs when he recalls his introduction to the sport.
“I think I started when I was six,” he said. “I remember it – the coach freaked me out or something, so I went to one practice, and that was enough. Then I came back the next year.”
He never left.
As a freshman at Pennsbury, McGurrin found himself in the unusual position of facing his older brother, Ryan, in a wrestle off.
“He was a senior, and that didn’t go in my favor – he beat me there, but I had a couple of varsity matches my freshman year,” he said.
A fixture in the varsity lineup as a sophomore and junior, McGurrin recently won his wrestle off and will be wrestling at 160, a drop from 172 of last year.
“I’m back at cutting weight – last year, I didn’t really have to do it,” he said. “Football season I was probably walking around 180. Now I’m down to about 167, so it was definitely a big cut. That’s the worst part of the sport, but it’s rewarding when you hop on the scale and get down there.”
Wayne Stinson was McGurrin’s high school coach for three years and still remains in contact with his former wrestler and his family.
“Shane’s a phenomenal kid,” Stinson said. “I have nothing but good things to say about him. He always talks playful smack with me, and he always thinks he can beat me, which I think really helped him develop as a wrestler, as a leader and as a kid.
“He always did whatever I asked of him, he came into practice and worked his tail off, and I’m excited to see what he does this year. He actually is going down a weight class, so he’s going to be in the right weight class now. I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people how well he’s going to do, and I think he’s going to surprise himself.”
McGurrin has goals he hopes to reach this season – his first is advancing to regionals.
“I was one match off last year,” the senior said. “I lost a tough match to a kid I think I could have done better against, so that’s my goal this year – make it to regionals. Start there and see what I can do from that point on.”
In the spring, McGurrin is a member of Pennsbury’s ultimate frisbee team. He is also the lead guitarist for the band Mystic Daze.
McGurrin is uncertain of his plans for next year. He has not ruled out the possibility of playing football as a walk on. He also is giving consideration to wrestling.
“I’m not sure of anything yet,” he said. “I’m still thinking about all of that.”
He is leaning toward physical therapy as a possible major.
“Or something along those lines,” McGurrin said. “I never had to work with a physical therapist, but I’ve been around it. I’ve seen a lot of kids go down and knowing how to handle that stuff would be a cool job.”
