(article courtesy of Johnson County Athletics)
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — After 33 seasons in the Cavaliers dugout, Kent Shelley will retire as head coach of the Johnson County Community College baseball program at the conclusion of the 2020 season. The Hall of Fame coach enters his final campaign with 1,055 wins, two NJCAA World Series appearances, four Region VI titles and three East Jayhawk Conference titles. He is the winningest coach in JCCC history, and one of the all-time leaders in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.
“I am extremely honored to have been given the opportunity to coach all 33 years of my career at the same institution which I have taken great pride in representing throughout my travels in the world of baseball,” said Shelley. “To be able to sustain a level of excellence both in the class room as well as on the baseball field has been a direct testament to the high caliber of student-athletes we have been able to identify, develop, provide a quality education and assist in moving to the next level. I will always be a Cavalier, and I will remain their No. 1 fan.”
In his previous 32 campaigns as the Cavaliers skipper, Shelley has produced nine teams that have surpassed 40 wins, 20 teams that have won at least 30 wins and his teams have topped 20 wins more in 31 of those 32 seasons. He has been named the Region VI Coach of the Year four times (1990, 1993, 2003, 2014) and was the Kansas Jayhawk Conference East Division Coach of the Year in 2014.
Shelley’s players have also seen unbelievable success. He has coached 11 NJCAA All-Americans, two preseason All-Americans, one World Series All-Tournament selection, six USA Junior College All-Stars, 34 All-Region performers and 176 All-East Jayhawk Conference selections. Additionally, 44 of his former players have been drafted or signed as free agents by Major League Baseball. In August of 2002, power hitter Kit Pellow became the first JCCC player to make it to the Major Leagues, playing for the Kansas City Royals. Two years later, Pellow was the opening day starter in left field for the Colorado Rockies.
Off the field Shelley’s players have been honored by the NJCAA for academic excellence 63 times, and since 2008, his teams have been ranked among the top 15 academic teams in the country. In 2019, pitcher Dylan Bierman became the first JCCC male athlete to earn Google Cloud Academic All-America® College Division At-Large as named by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Shelley has also played a significant role in helping his players continue their playing careers at four-year universities and college. A total of 315 student-athletes under his direction have transferred to play at four-year institutions, with 272 at the NCAA Division I and Division II levels, including Arkansas, Creighton, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Missouri State, Nebraska, New Mexico State, North Carolina, Oklahoma State and Tennessee to name a few.