Shelton, Everett F.
Basketball
b. May 12, 1898, Cunningham, KS
d. April 16, 1974
Shelton served in the Marine Corps during World War I and then enrolled at Phillips College in Oklahoma, the school that produced Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen. He played baseball, basketball, and football at Phillips, graduating in 1923.
After a year as a high school coach, Shelton became coach of all major sports at his alma mater. His basketball teams won 48 games and lost 29 in three seasons, and he then began coaching AAU teams, including Sterling Milk, Cripes Bakery, and the St. Joseph Boosters Club. During that period, many companies offered jobs to good players and used their AAU teams as a form of promotion, especially in the midwest.
Shelton returned to high school coaching from 1929 to 1933, then went back to AAU basketball with the Denver Safeways, who won the AAU national championship in 1937. He left Denver in 1938 for the Antlers Hotel team.
In 1939, Shelton was hired as baseball, basketball, and golf coach at the University of Wyoming, eventually concentrating on basketball. His 1943 team won the NCAA tournament and finished third in the AAU national tournament.
Except for the 1943-44 season, when the university dropped basketball and Shelton guided the Dow Chemical AAU team, he was at Wyoming through the 1958-59 season, compiling a 328-200 record and winning eight conference championships.
Shelton went to Sacramento State College in 1959 and was 188-188 in 10 seasons there, retiring from coaching in 1968. He had an overall record of 850-437, including 494-347 as a college coach.
Generally credited as an originator of the five-man weave offense, Shelton conducted basketball clinics in Europe and the Far East during the early 1950s. He was commissioner of the Far West Conference from 1969 until his death.