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In her 27 years in Chapel Hill, Karen Shelton has built one of the country's finest field hockey programs at the University of North Carolina. Shelton was hired as the Tar Heels' head coach in 1981 and since then has led UNC to national prominence in the form of five NCAA Championships, six NCAA runner-up finishes, 16 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and 25 winning seasons. The most recent title came in 2007, when the Tar Heels finished 24-0 with a school-record 16 shutouts, including a 3-0 win over Penn State in the national championship game. With a 3-1 victory at William & Mary on Sept. 3, 2005, Shelton registered the 400th win of her career, all at UNC. A three-time National Coach of the Year and eight-time ACC Coach of the Year, she has an overall record of 448-125-9 through the 2007 season and ranks fifth nationally in career wins. "Karen has built a program our school is very proud of, both for the team's success on the field and for the way it represents our university," says UNC athletic director Dick Baddour. Not only has she built a strong program, Shelton was a driving force behind construction of Francis E. Henry Stadium, which was dedicated as the home of the Tar Heels in the spring of 1999. With a capacity of 1,086, Henry Stadium also includes meeting rooms and locker rooms and is one of the finest facilities of its kind. New in 2006 was a state-of-the-art video board, bringing even more excitement to the Tar Heels' home games. UNC field hockey players are high achievers on the field and in the classroom, adding academic honors to championships and All-America accolades. Tar Heels carry a wide variety of majors and alums are successful in fields such as medicine, coaching, teaching, dentistry, business and finance. A large number of Shelton's players also have gone on to represent the U.S. in international play. A total of 24 North Carolina players have been members of U.S. National Teams and every U.S. National Team since 1989 has included at least once Tar Heel. The 16-player roster for the 2007 Pan-Am Games included five from UNC. Many other Tar Heels have played for junior teams, with five on the 2007 Under-21 team. Born Nov. 14, 1957, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Shelton spent the first 10 years of her life on Army bases from Aberdeen, Md., to El Paso, Texas. (Her late father, James, was a lieutenant colonel.) With four brothers and two sisters, she was never at a loss for playmates and enthusiastically participated in whatever sport the day would bring. She was in fifth grade when her father retired and the family moved to Pennsylvania. Shelton also played basketball and lacrosse and competed in track, but growing up in the cradle of field hockey, that was the game she grew to love. At West Chester State College, Shelton played on three national championship field hockey teams and one national championship lacrosse team. Three times she was named field hockey's national player of the year, a streak that has never been equaled. Shelton earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 1979, then spent one year as assistant coach at Franklin & Marshall College while also teaching and coaching at Middle Township High School in New Jersey. She was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1977-84 and started for the squad that won a bronze medal, the nation's highest finish in Olympic competition, at the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1984. Her international experience also includes the 1979 and 1983 World Cup competitions and American Cup tournaments in 1982 and 1983. She was U.S. Field Hockey's Athlete of the Year in 1983 and was inducted into the USFHA Hall of Fame in 1989 for her achievements as a player. In 1999, she was named the Delaware County Field Hockey Athlete of the Millennium by the Delaware County Daily Times. Away from field hockey, Shelton enjoys reading and spending time at the beach. She is married to Willie Scroggs, a senior associate athletic director at UNC who coached the Carolina men's lacrosse team from 1979-90. Under Scroggs' direction, the Tar Heels won NCAA titles in 1981, '82 and '86. Their son, William, is a senior at Chapel Hill High School and an All-America lacrosse player. Even in the offseason, field hockey is never far from Shelton's mind. In the summers of 1999 and 2000, she coached the Southern Charm to the championship of the United Airlines Field Hockey League, the USFHA elite summer program. She served as assistant coach in 2001, 2002 and 2003, as the Charm took three more crowns, and was co-head coach of the team in 2004. In the summer of 2007, she was the assistant coach of the South Region team in the USFHA National Championships. She has served as director of Olympic development camps on the Carolina campus and helped bring the U.S. National Team to Chapel Hill for training in 1994. That summer, UNC played host to both the men's and women's national teams from Great Britain as well as the Jamaican women's squad. In 1996, Chapel Hill was Great Britain's pre-Olympic training site. A very visible ambassador for UNC and its athletic programs, Shelton was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece, a campus honor society, in March of 2002. |
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