A teacher and coach who led the New Hope High School softball program to numerous state titles and molded the lives of hundreds of girls has died.
Cary Shepherd was 71.
Memorial Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Services have not yet been announced.
Shepherd began the New Hope softball program in 1982. Then, she crafted a dynasty.
She led her slow-pitch teams to 18 playoff appearances, 19 division titles, 13 North State crowns, three state runner-up finishes and nine state championships. In fast-pitch, her teams made 10 playoff runs, won four district titles, had one North State title and one state runner-up finish.
Her overall coaching record: 861-263.
For her players and students, Shepherd was a loving, supportive mentor who demanded hard work and dedication. Her influence has spread to classrooms and softball diamonds across the region.
Tabitha Beard first met Shepherd in the second grade. She was in a long line of women who played for Shepherd.
“Everybody wanted to grow up and play for Coach Shepherd,” Beard said. “The softball program was world class, and she made it that way.”
Beard wanted not only to grow up and play for Shepherd, but to follow directly in her mentor’s footsteps. In 2006, Beard took the reigns of the softball program from Shepherd. In the classroom, she taught math — the same subject her coach had. The first few years on the job, Beard said she called Shepherd almost every day.
Beard said Shepherd kept up with all her players throughout the years and always made time for her girls. Her kindness extended to rival teams — Shepherd began New Hope’s tradition of giving goodie bags to opponents.
Ame Walker said she had some form of contact with Shepherd everyday from fifth grade through her senior year of high school. Like Beard, Walker followed her coach’s path. She is now a teacher at New Hope, where she also is an assistant girl’s basketball coach, and was previously a softball coach at South Panola. In college, she spent a semester as an assistant coach for Shepherd at New Hope.
“I always wanted to be around people who made me great, and she always brought the best out of us,” Walker said.
Walker said Shepherd’s talent for bringing out the best in others extended from the field into the classroom, where she received numerous awards as a math teacher.
A Lee High School and Mississippi University for Women graduate, Shepherd was a community institution who continued to be a source of encouragement for New Hope student-athletes. She attended games and spent time around the softball program as she battled Alzheimer’s disease.
“Coach Shepherd poured everything she had into everything she did,” Lowndes County School District superintendent Lynn Wright told The Dispatch this morning. “That carried not only onto the field, but also into her player’s success in life.”
“She was a fighter to the very end and that’s what she taught us to be,” Walker said.
There will be a candle-light vigil tonight at Lady Trojan Field at 8 p.m. to honor and celebrate Coach Shepherd.
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