Blue Star Operations

Lori Gear-McBride

Lori Gear McBride joined Blue Star in 2017 after nearly 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, including stops in the BIG EAST, Conference USA, NESCAC and America East, most recently the head coach at Vermont. She has worked at and run camps throughout the country and Canada since her days as a student-athlete.

Gear McBride, who won an NCAA National Championship as a member of the University of North Carolina squad in 1994, coached at the University of Vermont for six seasons, at Colby College for five and spent five years as an assistant at Seton Hall University (1998-2003), including two years as assistant head coach. She also spent the 2003-04 campaign as an assistant at University of North Carolina-Charlotte where she helped produce a top-30 recruiting class and helped guide the team to the WNIT.
Following her one-year stint at UNC-Charlotte, Gear McBride returned to New Jersey to take the head girl's basketball coaching position at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School (Scotch Plains, N.J.). She led the team to a 24-5 record, including a berth in the state playoffs and the Union County Championship. Three of her players went on to continue their careers at the Division I level, including 2006 Atlantic-10 Rookie of the Year Hillary Klimowicz.

Gear McBride, who was born in Montreal and grew up in Lennoxville, Quebec, earned a master's degree in corporate and public communications from Seton Hall. She graduated from North Carolina in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in education.
While a member of the Tar Heels, she was one of two freshmen to play on the 1994 national championship team (the other was Marion Jones). Gear McBride played on three Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship teams in her four years and was a co-captain as a junior and senior. She was the North Carolina women's basketball scholar-athlete in 1997 and was selected to the ACC Athletic Honor Roll all four years. While at North Carolina the Tar Heels went 105-24 in Gear McBride's four years.

Following her collegiate career, she played one season of professional basketball in Portugal. Gear McBride also played in the Canada Basketball system from 1992-1995. She represented her home country in two World University Games and played for the Canadian National Team in 1995. She played scholastically at Alexander Galt High School and Champlain College (Lennoxville).