Steve Mckee
Former CFL linebacker tears up the track
Chat for 20 minutes with Steve Mckee and you feel like you’re fast friends. Affable and full of a joie de vivre, he loves to laugh and make fun of himself. When we connect, I explain the reason for my call. He chuckles when I tell him it’s for a column I pen where I interview celebrities.
“I am not a celebrity nor have I ever been one,” Mckee says. “What’s the angle here?” The angle is a profile on a compelling i ndividual. Despite his self-deprecating humour, he is a celebrity in his community – and in his own way – even if he doesn’t realize it.
As a linebacker, Mckee played two seasons in the Canadian Football League (cfl), suiting up with the Hamilton Tiger-cats in 1994 and the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1995. He stresses his professional football career was short-lived for a reason.
“I was terrible,” Mckee laughs. “I was able to pull the wool over the eyes of coaches and general managers for two years before they saw through the fact that I had no talent whatsoever.
“After playing only two games for the Rough Riders in 1995, I’m sitting in the dressing room reading an editorial in the sports pages of the Ottawacitizen, where the writer is making a case that our team is the worst in the history of the cfl,” he continues. “As I’m reading that article, I got called into the front office and I was told I was cut! That’s when the light went off that maybe it was time for a new career.”
When we connect, Mckee had just pedalled home from a busy night on the job. He was getting set to read the newspaper in his living room, surrounded by a few of his bikes. Today, the father of three is a firefighter – a “celebrity” in the Hamilton community for saving lives and keeping people safe.
Again, he laughs at this career choice. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. After five years of university, why not become a firefighter? That makes perfect sense.”
Mckee’s love of cycling started young. As a kid, he lived in the suburbs; pedalling on two wheels was just how you got around. “I remember having a race on my street in front of my house that I’m pretty sure both of my older brothers let me win,” he recalls. “bmx bikes were the thing. We rode like maniacs with no compunction for safety gear.”
Later, Mckee became infatuated with mountain biking before taking a hiatus from cycling while playing football at the University of Guelph, since extracurricular activities were frowned upon. What made him return to cycling and switch from mountain to road? “You can blame Steve Bauer,” Mckee says.
In 2000, Mckee was mountain biking with a friend who brought along a Steve Bauer Chinook for him to try. “It had a 62" frame and the head tube was like a foot tall,” he recalls. “It was in mint condition. I ended up riding that thing into the ground.”
These days, Mckee has turned his sights to track cycling. When he’s not fighting fires, you’ll find him training and racing at the Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ont. He loves the competition and the camaraderie. Despite his recent success – Mckee won three gold medals (Master B) this past fall at the Canadian track championships and was made an honorary member of the Hamilton Cycling Club – he has no illusions about a new career in the sport.
“I’m not clever enough to have a training plan,” Mckee says. “That’s for guys that have talent and a future. I’m just an old guy going week to week. If there is a race, I’ll sign up for it.”
“You can blame Steve Bauer.”