Noah Fenske opens a business and embraces Southern Illinois (Part Two)
- Tom Weber
- Dec 2
- 6 min read
CARBONDALE, Ill. — In Part Two of the Noah Fenske story, the Saluki center talks about meeting his fiancée, starting a local training facility for young athletes, working with strength coach Meade Smith, becoming a foster parent, and why he’s embraced the southern Illinois community and plans to stay in the area now that his college career has ended.
StrongDawgs Conversation with Noah Fenske
SD: Talk about the impact Saluki Football has had on your life.
NF: I love this program. I’ll bleed maroon for the rest of my life. People who know I play for an FCS school will ask, who's your favorite college team? I just say SIU. I don't care who we’re playing, let's go beat them. This place is so special to me. I met my fiancée here and some of my best friends I’ll ever have. I plan on living in southern Illinois for at least the foreseeable future.
SD: Tell me about your fiancée, Taylor.
NF: I had no money in my pocket when I moved here. I literally picked up whatever I could fit in my car and moved here. I had nothing, and that never mattered to her. The first time she saw my closet, she said, “this is all the clothes you have?”
She let me fight and live for my dream. Her family has just been absolutely wonderful with support. I thank God every single day that I met her, met her family, and that I get to be with her, because she has really propelled my life in a direction I never thought was possible.
We’ve been engaged for a year-and-a-half. We had planned to get married last year before I decided to play one more season, so we’ll get married next year.
SD: You and Taylor fostered a six-year-old girl over the past summer. How did that come about?
NF: Tay works at the school in Murphysboro, and she came back one day and said, “let's take care of this girl.” I had grown up in a similar situation, although I didn’t have to be fostered. All this girl wanted was love and a family. You realize how much bigger life is than playing ball, when you have someone that is craving to be cared for and loved. It was the best three months of my life, whether or not you call it being a dad or not.
We wanted to adopt her, but there was another family that was a little bit better fit for her needs, a really incredible, selfless family. We were too young, didn’t have any kids of our own. Right before the first game, it's the hardest thing I've ever gone through, just saying to her, “we're not the best fit here.” We still love her, and we still try everything we can to help.
SD: You started your own business two years ago, with the help of your landlord, Dave Gray. Tell us that story.
NF: It’s a funny story. My refrigerator was leaking, and a landlord doesn't want to be bothered on the 4th of July, especially because a fridge is leaking, but he comes over, fixes it, and he's super-friendly. He asked if I know much about weightlifting and would I train his kid, who is an incredible soccer player? He was driving two hours to find a trainer.
My favorite part about football has always been the weight room. Dave has a stick barn on his property, and to make a long story short, we turned it into a gym. He told me to build it the way I wanted. We started with a squat rack, a bike, and a rower, which looking back, was not what I needed at first. Now it has heat and air, but it didn't have heat and air back when we started. During the season, I was at SIU during the day, and then I'm at the barn working the kids out from 4 to 8:30 most nights. It's just kind of spring-boarded into this wonderful business that I'm just so blessed to have.
SD: How many kids are you currently training, and what do you think makes the training experience you offer special?
NF: It's just crazy how much this thing has grown. I started with one and we’re at 15 now.
I would say one, when you come into the gym, you're going to be cared for first. They're gonna be taken care of, whether we're lifting or we're just talking life. I think that's kind of my edge, just being able to guide some of these kids. Two, you're gonna get somebody who's incredibly passionate about what they do. I love seeing the kids smile. I got to watch (volleyball player) Kegan Shields just tear up the conference this whole season. Jack (Randle) went from a little kid to being the absolute best soccer player in the in the area. And then you're also going to get somebody who's willing to be versatile, to adapt and try new things. I think you're gonna get the best product that I can possibly give your kid, and it’s a relatively reasonable cost for all that we do.
You're going to get a great environment. We have a lot of fun in there. I've got surround sound speakers and a TV. Some days with the girls, we've watched Modern Family while we're working out. I think that's important that we can live a little bit while we're suffering in there.
(To contact Noah for information about training your child, you can reach out to him through social media.)
Instagram: @N.j.f.53
X: @nfenske53
Facebook: Noah Fenske
SD: It sounds like you’ve found your post-football passion.
NF: It’s been life-changing. I have an incredible passion to help kids chase their dreams. I get to watch people's lives transform every single day. I didn't have a trainer growing up, and I know how much that might have helped me when I got to college because I didn't know what I was doing.
I can’t thank Dave enough. Just the generosity of him letting me use his property. His mentorship has helped me become a better leader, a better husband, a better man. He helped me understand the business-side of training athletes so I can make a living doing it.
SD: You’ve been trained by one of the best in Meade Smith. How much have you incorporated from SIU’s strength coach?
NF: I don't think there's a better person in the business than Coach Meade. His passion is unmatched. We're far better every year than we should be because of Coach Meade. He prepares football players like I've never seen. At the end of the day, his genuine care for you outweighs anything else that he does. He will get you to run through a wall for him, and so I try to take a lot of what I learned from him and apply that to my job.
He’s another great mentor helping me understand the business side — what I need to learn, what I need to do, what I need to not do, what's worked, what hasn't worked. He's the best.
SD: Talk about why you’re planning to stay in the area now that your Saluki career has ended.
NF: This region accepted me with open arms. It said, “hey, if you want to flourish, you can flourish. You've got to put the work in it.” I think that's so much of the culture here in southern Illinois. If you put the work in, you're gonna succeed and thrive. There's a toughness about this place, and I think that this place deserves a football team that's going out and competing for national championships every year, because that's the city of Carbondale. This city is coming back. I believe that. I think there's a lot of amazing people who are ready to see, not just football, but the university and the town be the comeback story. It’s a big reason why I think people like Nick Hill stick around here. This is who they are and they identify with it.
That's what crushed me the most when I came off the field after we lost on Senior Day. It wasn't just about the game. I wanted to be a part of that team that finally breaks through. This team fought and clawed, and that's really the embodiment of this region. There's a lot of people who just haven't given up around here. There's a lot of people who have suffered for better days. I believe those better days are coming. I'm very bought-in to this area, because I came down here and it's given me everything I could I could ever want, and I want to return that favor.
Coming Thursday: In the final part of the Noah Fenske story, he explains why he came back for his seventh season of college football, the turnaround on the offensive line, and his thoughts on Coach Hill and the future of Saluki Football.
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