article City of Covington to proclaim "Kenney Shields Day" this Saturday

The City of Covington will proclaim “Kenney Shields Day” on Saturday, August 26 during a ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. at Behringer-Crawford Museum in Devou Park.

Mayor Joseph U. Meyer will issue the proclamation honoring the long-time basketball coach, who grew up in Covington, worked for the city recreation department and helped conduct youth basketball leagues at Covington Turners Hall for more than 30 years.

The public is invited to Saturday’s ceremony. There will be no admission charge to enter the museum. Free parking will be available in the lot adjacent to the museum.

Shields compiled a 766-427 record coaching high school and college basketball in Northern Kentucky during his 39-year career. He recently published a book, Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else, about his life and coaching accomplishments.

Autographed copies of the book will be sold for $15 during Saturday’s ceremony. Items from several people mentioned in the book will also be on display. There will be a raffle for a basketball autographed by Shields and a Split the Pot drawing.

One of the guest speakers on Saturday will be Dr. James Claypool, professor emeritus at Northern Kentucky University. He prepared a few words about the growth of the university while Shields was head coach of the Norse men’s basketball program.

Shields will give a short talk, introduce his new book and then be available for autographs. A cable television crew from TBNK will interview attendees about their past experiences with Shields for a program to be televised at a later date.

The book, written by Dave Schabell, covers Shields’ life before, during and after his remarkable basketball coaching career. The reader learns about him growing up in an Irish Catholic family and the boyhood teammates who became life-long friends. The ups and downs of his high school and college coaching career that he shared with his wife, Marie, are a major part of the story line.

The book’s title is taken from a speech Shields often gave before a big game. He told his players: “Go out and do your best … nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.”

One year after he graduated from college, Shields started his head coaching career at St. Thomas, a small parish high school. He spent 10 years there before becoming the boys’ head basketball coach at Highlands, where he won 261 games and five 9th Region championships in 13 seasons.

His record of success on the high school level led to him becoming the men’s head basketball coach at Northern Kentucky University. After a few rough years, he took NKU teams to the NCAA Division II national championship game in 1996 and 1997. The Norse were still considered one of the top Division II teams in the country when Shields retired in 2004 with a 306-170 record in 16 seasons.

A portion of the money from book sales will go to the Kenney Shields Scholarship Fund that was established at NKU for men's basketball players.

For more information or to set up an interview, please contact Terry Boehmker at terryboe@yahoo.com or 859-653-8129. The book is available online at shieldsbook.com.

Very cool. Glad my kids have all had the chance to get to know Coach Shields.

Thanks for the promo!

Coach Shields is a great guy. It has been my pleasure to work with him on the book for all these too many years it took to bring it to fruition.

Terry Boehmker and Rick Meyers took the massive "war and peace" production that we wrote and converted it into the compact, novel style read that it is today. We are indebted to them.

We have placed the entire original manuscript on CD for anyone who wishes to read the specifics of any era (or year of his coaching career). There is no charge for the CD, other that the cost of the book.

Great man and great family. Glad he's being honored this way.