Longtime high school football coach George Shelton, who had successful runs at Dollarway and Watson Chapel High Schools, has died.
Shelton, 65, led Dollarway to two state championship game appearances before taking over at Watson Chapel. The Wildcats reached the state semifinals each of his first three seasons. He had two stints as an assistant coach at Pine Bluff High School, during which the Zebras won two state championships.
Current Pine Bluff head coach Micheal Williams said Shelton was a Pine Bluff icon.
“He meant everything to high school football,” Williams said. “He was one of our heroes around here. And not just around here, around Arkansas in general, because he did a lot of things with lesser talent than a lot of people do with a lot of talent. To be able to be a winner everywhere he went says a lot about him.”
Shelton graduated from Fordyce High School in 1977, where he had been among the first Black students at the previously all-white elementary school. He graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello in 1982 before beginning his coaching career.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
He started as an assistant coach at Warren, then at Pine Bluff. He left PBHS to join the military at age 27. After finishing his eight-year service, he returned to PBHS, where he eventually served as head track coach in addition to his football duties. He rejoined the Zebras after they had won the 1993 football state championship and helped them win two more in 1994 and 1995.
Shelton coached Williams during this time while Williams was attending Jack Robey Junior High School, though he left PBHS before Williams moved up to high school. Williams said Shelton was a tough, hard-nosed coach, and it was the same whether he was playing for Shelton or, later, coaching against him. But when the game was over, Shelton would finally crack a smile.
“He had one of the greatest smiles that you’d ever see,” Williams said. “His smile would light up a room, even up until the last time I saw him. That laugh and that smile would make you start laughing and smiling.”
After five years at PBHS, he took his first head coaching job at Augusta and led the Red Devils to the AA state title game in 2001.
Shelton was the head coach at Dollarway from 2002-07. He led the Cardinals to 4A state championship games in 2004 and 2007. From there, he moved to Watson Chapel and led the Wildcats to three straight semifinals (two in 6A and one in 5A) from 2008-10 to start his tenure.
Current Watson Chapel head coach Steven Heard began his coaching career as a student teacher there under Shelton. He said Shelton taught him that coaching starts with leadership, not football.
“The first priority is the kids,” Heard said. “Xs and Os can come later. He said you can teach a bear, you can teach a dog to do a certain task. However, you gotta be the type of man that wraps your arm around kids and love them so they are willing, they want to come and play for you. Not that you making them get out there. They want to be out there for you.”
Shelton remained at Watson Chapel until 2013. He took some time off from football before returning to coaching as an assistant under Bo Hembree at Warren for four years. In 2020, he took the head job at Dumas for one year, then finished his career by coaching Little Rock Central from 2021-22.
Heard had returned to his hometown, Helena-West Helena, by this point. But when Shelton got the Dumas job, Heard was one of the first people he called. Heard said when Shelton asked him to be his defensive coordinator, he said yes without asking at what school they would be coaching.
“He had a knack for seeing the potential in people and pushing them past their limits, even what they thought,” Heard said. “He just brung the best out of people. Any player, any coach, he always brung the best out of them. He had that effect on me that I wanted to be under his tutelage.”
Heard said he and Shelton would spend hours after practice just talking about life during their year at Dumas. He said Shelton was like a second father to him, and he feels like he lost a family member.
Williams said he had planned to bring Shelton back to PBHS as a consultant to help him this year.
“Coach Shelton’s going to be truly missed,” Williams said. “He’s a Pine Bluff icon, and he definitely should be in the Pine Bluff hall of fame.”