Michael Shelton is prepared for the next challenge in his coaching career. 

Shelton — who spent the last three years as the head boys basketball coach at Governor’s Academy in Newbury — was hired in May for the same position at Northfield Mount Hermon School. He’ll take over for John Carroll, who left following the 2021-22 season after 21 seasons with the program.

With only three returning players from a season ago between the two NMH teams, Shelton got right to work as soon as he arrived in Gill. 

“It’s been a wild rush since July when I got on campus,” Shelton said. “Taking over a program with only three returners, it was a fun task to get out after it quickly. Since I didn’t take the job until May, a lot of families and kids had already made their decisions. To play at the level we need to play at, I hit the ground running as fast as I could to get the talent in here to compete.” 

It wasn’t just the basketball side of things that drew Shelton to NMH. He said it’s everything else that’s offered at the school that got him interested in the job and the opportunity NMH provides to develop its students. 

He’s honored to try to continue the legacy of the program and keep it going in the future after Carroll turned NMH into a national brand.

“I’m extremely humbled to take over this storied program,” Shelton said. “It has a brand of excellence that’s been going on for many years. It’s a unique place for our young men to come. They get to be citizen leaders and learn how to progress as young men. Basketball is important to all of us but when you come to NMH, there’s so much more than just basketball offered. You want to make them better basketball players so they can realize their dreams but you also really want them to be model citizens, great husbands and great people in the world. Having those principles to fall back on is priceless.” 

Shelton is walking into a program that has lofty expectations, to say the least. NMH won the 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2019 NEPSAC championships, and also competes yearly for the National Prep Championship, winning it in 2013.

Those wins and championships may come, but only once the team’s preparation levels reach what Shelton envisions.

“We’ll be hard workers and not waste a single day,” Shelton said. “Success looks different each year. The kids you’re coaching are different, the kids you’re going up against are different. I don’t measure success by wins and losses; I measure it by how well prepared my team is. We’ll strive to be the best prepared team in the country. When we do that, we’ll be competitive, we’ll win a lot of games and be in a position to win championships. That’s all you can ask for.”

Shelton’s journey to the Pioneer Valley has been a wild ride. He grew up in Indiana before playing collegiately at Bellarmine University in Kentucky.

His first coaching job was as the JV coach at Kentucky County Day School before eventually making his way onto the staff at Wesleyan University, a Div. 3 school. He spent three years coaching under Joe Riley at Wesleyan before moving on to be an assistant at D2 University of New Haven. After a few years in Connecticut, he went to Winthrop where he was a video coordinator under Pat Kelsey (yes, that Pat Kelsey who spurned UMass a few years ago).

His experiences at all three levels helped prepare him for his time as a prep coach.

“I have such a well-rounded experience coaching at the Div. 1, 2 and 3 levels that uniquely prepared me to be a prep school coach,” Shelton said. “At the preps you have kids from all different talent levels. Being able to prepare kids for the next level and knowing what it takes to play with the best of the best is great. Not only that but one of the important things is understanding fit and knowing what level each kid would be best served playing at. My experience coaching at each level really prepared me for that.” 

Shelton eventually moved on from the college level, landing the head coaching job at Williston Northampton School. Coaching in Class A with schools like Phillips Exeter, Shelton went into that job with the goal of having a team that could compete with the top of the class in five years. 

It wound up taking just one. Shelton took over a Williston team with no returners, recruited 10 players and beat Exeter in the first round of the Class A tournament before going on to win the whole thing.

Shelton spent a second year at Williston, once again winning the Class A title. He combined to lose just five games in his two years in Easthampton and was named NEPSAC Coach of the Year in 2015.

Shelton left Williston to go back to Indiana, coaching at the Park Tudor School in Indianapolis but returned to New England again in 2018 to head up the Governor’s Academy program. At Governor’s, he sent players to the Div. 1 level, building up the program for three years before taking the job at NMH.

He said he hopes to continue serving as a mentor to the young players he coaches and be a positive influence on them.  

“I’ll try to be a mentor for the kids and a leader in life to guide them and help them learn and grow,” Shelton said. “It’s OK if you aren’t perfect or didn’t get that scholarship to Duke. We want to celebrate our guys no matter what they decide to do after they graduate. It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like to go through this in the social media age. It’s a tangled web they weave themselves into where they put their self worth on what offers they’re getting and social media recognition. My job is to debunk that and show them they can only control what they can control and that they just need to strive to be the best version of themselves.” 

In year one, Shelton said he’s brought in plenty of talented players that’ll keep the Hoggers competitive.

Richard Enweke, a 6-foot-8 Columbia commit, should be a big piece of what Shelton is going to do. Matt Gray is a 6-foot-7 wing from Virginia who will attend for a post-graduate year and already has three Div. 1 offers. Hunter Fleming followed Shelton from Governor’s and has Ivy League potential, while underclassman Greg Brooks is a player who should also see minutes. Trey Roman and Walker Andrews are two high-level guards who have Div. 1 interest. 

“I really do love all the guys I brought in,” Shelton said. “We’re super excited to get working with all them.”

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