WCU Field Hockey Great Shelton Honored by UNC

See the Full Release Here
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.-Former West Chester field hockey player and legendary UNC field hockey coach Karen Shelton will forever be synonymous with UNC field hockey as the UNC Department of Athletics announced on Monday afternoon that the field hockey stadium is to be named Karen Shelton Stadium.

Shelton a two time Field Hockey Hall of Famer (USA Field Hockey HOF 1989 & National Field Hockey Coaches Association Class of 2008) graduated from West Chester in 1979 with a Bachelors degree in Health and Physical Education after winning three National Championships playing Field Hockey and one National Lacrosse Championship. Shelton was also inducted into the West Chester University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1990. Shelton received the Broderick Award presented to the Division I Field Hockey Play of the Year for three years in a row (76,77,78), which is a streak that has never been equaled. Shelton's impressive playing career continued beyond her collegiate career as she was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1977-84. Shelton was also a starter on the squad that captured a Bronze Medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games. Shelton earned USA Field Hockey Athlete of the Year plaudits in 1983 before being named Delaware County Field Hockey Athlete of the Millennium in 1999.

Shelton's coaching resume is equally as impressive as at the end of the 2017 season she possessed a record of 646-164-9 ranking her second in NCAA history in career wins.  Shelton has captured 20 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with the most recent title coming in 2017. Ten times in the past 11 seasons, Shelton has led Carolina to the NCAA final four, claiming titles in 2007 and 2009, finishing as runner-up in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016, and reaching the semifinals in 2013, 2014 and 2017.

Karen Shelton Stadium is the first UNC athletic playing facility to be named in honor of a woman. It is the only UNC facility named for a female coach or a current head coach and marks just the second time in school history that an individual will coach in a facility named for him or her. The first was the Dean E. Smith Center, where Smith coached the men's basketball team for 11 and a half seasons between the building's opening in 1986 and his retirement in 1997.
 
Among hundreds of buildings on the UNC campus, Shelton Stadium is one of just a handful named for individual women. The others are Carmichael, Kenan and Spencer dorms, the Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Art, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, the UNC School of Nursing's Carrington Hall, and the Mary Ellen Jones Building at UNC Hospitals. (Other campus buildings are named after families or multiple individuals.)