Crim: Shields’ impact felt in area athletic circles for decades

NEW SALEM, Ill. — Jim Shields retold the story of a reporter once asking him about the difference between coaching boys and coaching girls in high school basketball.

“I said the boys never gave me a state championship,” Shields laughed.

It was a vintage answer by a career coach, a straight shooter, a man who enjoyed life.

Shields died Dec. 14 at age 73 after complications following surgery to remove an aneurysm in his heart.

He was a fixture in area athletic circles from the time he took the head boys basketball coaching job at East Pike High School in Milton in 1972 until he coached his final basketball game for the Barry-Western girls in 2015.

In between, he was the first assistant coach hired when Dave Bennett took over the Pittsfield boys program in 1976, coached boys at both Aledo and Camp Point Central, spent 10 years as the athletic director at Pittsfield and was the first coach in the history of the John Wood Community College women’s basketball program.

He also coached high school baseball and softball teams and was an accomplished umpire in both sports. He served as an assistant in football. He even found time to work as a high school and college basketball referee in the years spent outside coaching the sport.

The pinnacle of his coaching career came in the 1983-84 season. Marvin Smith, who had guided the Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team to an undefeated Illinois Class A state championship the previous March, abruptly resigned as preseason practice was about to begin.

Shields, who had been let go months earlier from his first head coaching position after only one season at Aledo High School because of budget cuts and had returned to Pittsfield as a substitute teacher, was hired on Dec. 1 as Smith’s replacement.

“He walked into a group of girls with high expectations,” said Lonny Lemon, who was in his first season as an assistant coach on Bob Kies’ boys basketball staff and became a lifelong friend of Shields.

“He was part of those really good teams with Dave (Bennett), but he had never coached girls before. He knew what he was doing, and he was demanding and they accepted it. Early on he told me, ‘What I like about these girls is that they want to be coached like they are boys.’ ”

The Raiders, led by returning seniors Susan Wellman, Lori Vogel and Becky Winking, won 30 of 32 games to become the first girls basketball team to repeat as Illinois state champions by beating undefeated Teutopolis 56-53 in overtime in the title game the day before Shields’ 35th birthday.

Vogel, who scored a team-high 25 points in that contest, including two clinching free throws with eight seconds remaining after a weary QND flawlessly executed in overtime a four-corner offense Shields had installed, remembers the uncertainty surrounding the program in the weeks following Smith’s resignation.

“It was kind of a weird deal,” she said. “Our coach left, and we had two or three weeks when (athletic director) Al Knepler ran practice. He had never coached basketball or coached girls. We had three returning starters and didn’t really know what the future was going to be. Trying to find a coach in December is hard to do.

“Insert Jim Shields. It had to be really hard for Jim. We were learning about each other while playing games. But he knew we were on a mission to repeat as state champs. He was super intense and super passionate about basketball and had his own ideas of what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t overbearing. He went with the flow and let us be who we were.

“Our offense was there. We spent a lot more time on defense than we had ever before. It was the first time in my career I was super focused on defense, and that’s what he brought to the table. He respected our opinions, we respected his and it really worked out, obviously.”

The championship culminated a remarkable four-year run for QND. The Raiders reached the state title game three times in that span, winning twice, and also had a third-place finish while fashioning an overall record of 116-10.

“I was the driver’s ed teacher at the time (in 1984),” Bennett said, “and we would make big signs that said ‘Go Raiders’ and drive by his house and put them in his yard. (Shields still lived in Pittsfield and commuted that season.) There was a big rivalry between the two schools but everybody in town was pulling for him.”

Shields was named co-Coach of the Year with Palmyra’s Bob Fohey by the Quincy Herald-Whig in 1984 — the Panthers won the Missouri Class 2A state title — and earned the honor outright the following year when he guided QND to a 22-8 record and a sectional championship with a rebuilt team.

Shields spent two more seasons at QND before taking the boys basketball job at Camp Point Central.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience. His best player, Tim Johnson, transferred to Quincy High School midway through his first season and injuries limited the availability of other key players during his three seasons there.

Disenchanted, he got out of coaching for two years before accepting the challenge of building a program from scratch at JWCC, where luring players proved difficult. After one season, Shields returned to Pittsfield as athletic director, a position he would hold for a decade.

In 1997, he stepped in as Pittsfield’s softball coach when Pollee Craven took maternity leave and was named Coach of the Year by The Herald-Whig for his efforts.

“He would accept about any challenge someone asked him to do and he did them very well,” Bennett said. “You knew him. He could be happy-go-lucky, or he could be tough.

“He was the first assistant coach I had when I came (to Pittsfield) in 1976, and I was very fortunate to have someone who was interested in doing it and doing it right. He was there when we won our first sectional and when we won our first super-sectional and went to Champaign (in 1980), where we ran into Luther South.

“I distinctly remember walking off the floor together in Champaign (after the quarterfinal loss to the eventual state champions) and telling him, ‘You better look around because we may never see it again.’ ”

It wasn’t the final visit to Assembly Hall for either coach, however.

Shields earned his state championship four years later and Bennett earned his in 1991, part of a 23-year, Hall of Fame run in Pittsfield that produced 527 victories, 18 seasons of 20 or more wins, 11 sectional championships, four state tournament appearances and zero losing seasons.

Lemon was reunited with Shields, who also taught American history and government, when he became principal at Pittsfield High School in 2000. He said it was comforting to have Shields two doors away from his office to serve as a sounding board and provide valuable insight into the community.

“He loved sports and the competition, and he loved the kids better,” Lemon said. “He was a great classroom teacher, too. The kids loved him. I don’t think he had one discipline issue his entire career. He didn’t demand respect; he earned it.”

Shields, always the educator, continued to substitute teach and coach after he retired in 2010. It took a massive heart attack seven years ago at his home to finally sideline him.

“They said he should have died on the spot,” Lemon said.

However, he recovered, returned to good health and was enjoying spending time with his children and grandchildren when a recent routine exam uncovered the aneurysm.

Doctors at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis thought the surgery went well, but Shield’s condition began to worsen and his heart, which had given so much, finally gave out.

“It was a shock, no question,” Bennett said. “Thought he was on a nice road. Jim was good at what he did and was always on top of everything. We’ll miss him.”