Shepard pictured in Yackety yak 1936, UNC yearbook
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Sport(s) | College basketball |
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Current position | |
Title | Head coach |
Team | North Carolina |
Biographical details | |
Born | September 18, 1904 South Carolina, United States |
Died | May 8, 1983 Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
(aged 78)
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1931–35 | North Carolina |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 69–16 |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
1935 - Southern Conference Regular Season 1935 - Southern Conference Tournament |
George Edward "Bo" Shepard (September 18, 1904 – May 8, 1983) was best known for being the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team from 1931 through 1935.
He was the seventh child of Alexander Hurlbutt Shepard and Mary Augusta Westbrook.
Bo Shepard attended New Hanover High School in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Bo's family had various ties to athletics at North Carolina. His brother, Norman Shepard, became the head coach for North Carolina before Bo, and two of his other brothers, Caryle Shepard and Alex Shepard, played basketball for North Carolina. Bo and Norman Shepard are the only pair of sibling to have ever coached the North Carolina men's basketball team.
In 1929, Bo Shepard joined the University of North Carolina's athletic faculty as an assistant graduate manager of athletics.
In 1932, James Ashmore departed as the head coach of the North Carolina men's basketball team, and Bo Shepard took over as the new head coach.
In his first regular season, Shepard's North Carolina team was fairly successful winning 13 of 17 games and 6 out of 9 games in conference. In the 1933 Southern Conference Tournament, Shepard's North Carolina team managed to make it past Tennessee in the first round and beat the Kentucky in the second round, which was coached by Adolph Rupp in his second season. North Carolina beat Auburn to go to the finals of the Southern Conference championship where they lost a close game 24–26 to Georgia.
At the end of the 1932–33 season, 13 schools left the Southern Conference to create the Southeastern Conference, which greatly changed the playing schedule and the usual opponents for North Carolina.