Sheppard made his mark

Prep Scene

Speaking at Von Sheppard’s memorial service at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis last week, Floyd Smaller, legendary retired St. Paul Central football, basketball, track and field coach and educator, recalled the day one of the most gifted athletes he ever coached broke the long jump record at the Class AA state track meet in 1982.

“We were halfway to Stillwater High School for the state track meet,” Smaller recalled, “when he said it.”

“Coach,” Sheppard said to him at the time, “I forgot my [track] shoes.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Smaller said.

Upon arrival at the meet, Smaller talked about his frantic search for track shoes for his star, student-athlete. “Finally, the coach from Patrick Henry High School came up with some shoes,” he said. “And they fit.”

Sheppard, who passed away last month at the age of 58, broke the state long-jump record that day with a leap of 24’ 9.25” and went on to become one of the best student-athletes and educators to ever come out of Minnesota. 

The record has stood for 41 years.

At 5’10” and 175 pounds, Sheppard dominated the athletic scene from 1981 through 1983, to become an All-American tailback in football and all-conference shooting guard in basketball for St. Paul Central.

“He was the best athlete I ever saw and the best I ever played with,” said Christopher Hayes, a fellow 1983 Central graduate, and teammate of Sheppard’s in football and basketball. “As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a sport he couldn’t play.”

Sheppard earned a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska playing wing back for the national power from 1983-88.

Former Minneapolis Central football great Charles Rucker, a Minneapolis firefighter and former Nebraska teammate (1983-85), who hosted Sheppard during his recruiting visit, learned about Sheppard’s greatness upon his arrival on campus.

“We had this rule,” recalled Rucker, a 1980 Central graduate who played cornerback. “If you miss a tackle, you run the stadium stairs. Von let it be known that we [the defense] were going to be running a lot.”

Rucker and his teammates on defense didn’t think much of it, just a bunch of babble from an overconfident freshman. “We ended up running the stadium steps,” Rucker said smiling. “We couldn’t catch him. He was a great teammate.”     

Sheppard, who also excelled in track and field during his collegiate career, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1988, spent two seasons playing professional football in Europe, and ended his playing career by trying out with the Minnesota Vikings in 1990.

In 1992, he worked at the University of St. Thomas as coordinator of multicultural affairs and assistant football and track and field coach.

While at St. Thomas he coached a track and field athlete named Leonard Jones. “Coach Sheppard was a great coach and mentor,” said Jones. “He provided me with the motivation I needed to succeed not only in athletics but in life.”

Jones, who teamed with Martez Williams to lead Patrick Henry High School to the Class AA state championship in 1990, became a track and field All-American and a Hall of Famer at St. Thomas as a long, high, and triple jumper. He is currently a dean of students at Robbinsdale Cooper High School.

Sheppard moved on from St. Thomas to make his mark as an educator. As principal at Dayton’s Bluff Achievement Elementary School in St. Paul from 2001-2005, Sheppard and school staff improved student achievement from 17 percent at standard to 76 percent in the first three years.

“He was a person of enormous talent and compassion,” said Joe Nathan, former executive of the Center for School Change, who met Sheppard as a 13-year-old student at Murray Junior High School in St. Paul, while he was serving as assistant principal during the late 1970s. “We stayed in touch over the years as he moved into education.”

Sheppard relocated to Texas in 2018, and remained there until his passing, having excelled in life as an athlete, educator, and human being. Smaller put it best in his closing remarks at the memorial service:

“He was one of the best athletes I’ve ever coached. He was a great man.”