George Gregory Shackelford Jr.

On long summer days during the Depression, George Shackelford and his buddies would play baseball on a vacant lot across from his house in Newport News, Va. They did their best impressions of Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, Joe “Flash” Gordon, “Hammerin’ Hank” Greenberg and other players of the day. “We would play until dark,” George said. “It was only three or four boys, two or three on a side, and we would run, and run and run.”

He never wanted the game to end. But on another long summer day, nearly a century later, congestive heart failure made the decisive play. After a lifetime passion for baseball, his family, his church and simply, for life – George, 98, died peacefully at home on June 19, 2024, a man of faith reluctantly ready for the next inning.

“Enjoy life,” he once said. “It’s just wonderful.”

Big George – as affectionately known by his children – grew up the son of a clothing shop salesperson, his dad, George, and a consummate homemaker and volunteer, his mother, Ethel. “It was a simple life,” he liked to say.

An only child, he loved sports, went to church regularly and played clarinet in the high school band, once marching in the Peanut Festival Parade in eastern Virginia, where peanuts were “roasted, toasted and mosted,” he recalled in his droll Tidewater accent. “That was exciting.”

Big George graduated from Newport News High School in June 1942 at age 16 (there were only 11 grades) and went to work at the local shipyard, punching wooden pieces for welders to use in cutting steel. After receiving his WWII draft notice in October 1943, he joined the Navy despite being unable to swim, and attended torpedo school for about four months in Bainbridge, Md. A 5-day, 4-night train trip to San Francisco in cattle-car-like conditions with other troops preceded being assigned to an overcrowded destroyer, the USS John D. Henley, where he slept in a deck hammock for weeks before getting a bunk, often drenched by waves at night. When rations waned, the sailors ate bologna three meals a day – fried, in sandwiches and in stew. He never ate bologna again.

The Henley roamed the Pacific, giving protection to cruise and battleships and a lifeline to pilots whose planes ran out of fuel and landed in the ocean. The Henley also hunted subs and ran without lights in battle zones. One such night, standing watch, he spotted something in the water and became speechless. Was it a mine? The ship had been blowing up mines regularly, and the fleeting image proved to be a cardboard box.

At Iwo Jima, he and his shipmates provided heavy bombardment for the Marines to go ashore. One night, they fired 2,500 rounds from their largest guns (5 inches), and when the Marines made it up Mt. Suribachi to plant the U.S. flag, Big George was watching in awe from the ship.

Discharged in April 1946, he returned home and took a job at Langley Air Force base, where he collated aeronautical reports. When a friend encouraged him to attend Elon College on the GI bill, Big George didn’t have to think long, hopping a train to piedmont North Carolina for the campus, sight unseen. He completed a degree in physical education in July 1950 and finished his master’s degree the following June at UNC Chapel Hill. He married Patricia Gilliam on June 10, 1951, at Elon Community Church, and soon accepted a teaching and coaching position at Mebane (N.C.) High School, where he and Pat would make a life for more than a decade, along with their children Susan, Greg and Sherry. They spent many wonderful hours at First Baptist Church, Thompson Heights swimming pool, the ballpark, and with family and friends.

Big George became a highly successful coach in girls’ and boys’ basketball. His Mebane boys once won 51 straight, including a 28-0 record enroute to the 1957 Class A state title. The same year, the girls won the conference tournament, the highest a girls’ teams could achieve at the time.

In the Mebane community, Big George developed a robust summer youth recreation program for boys and girls, encompassing a wide range of sports and activities. After receiving a small amount of town seed money the first year, the program paid for itself from concession-stand proceeds and community donations. In 1960, he was named the Jaycees’ Man of the Year and became the director of the Mebane Teen-Age Club, where he chaperoned weekend dances and spun 45 RPM’s of such hits as Teen Angel, Traveling Man and Will You Love Me Tomorrow.

His last two years of teaching and coaching were at Eastern Alamance, a consolidated high school that included Mebane. The N.C. Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh recruited him in 1964 to work with health teachers throughout the state. He left Mebane as the winningest boys basketball coach in Alamance County history (187-83 record) and, in 1996, was in the first class of the Mebane Sports Hall of Fame. As a coach, he was proud of never cursing or receiving a technical foul. He spent 22 years at Public Instruction and was a pioneer in school sex education.

Not long after the family moved to Raleigh in 1965, Pat became ill. Big George and the children took over household responsibilities, and by the time she received a conclusive diagnosis of two rare diseases in 1969, she lived about four more months. After her death, Big George told his children that he and Pat wanted them to focus primarily on their education and other activities – that they only grew up once.

He ably ran the house until he married his second wife, Ann Muse, in 1972. A longtime teacher at Martin Junior High in Raleigh, she died of cancer in 1995. Several years later, Big George asked Carol O’Briant, an acquaintance at First Presbyterian, if she would like to go to a Durham Bulls game. After she said yes, they would start dating and marry in 2002. Not long into their marriage, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, but after treatment over about 10 years, his doctors no longer detected the disease.

At First Presbyterian, Big George served as an elder four times, received the Presbytery’s “Older Adult” award and loved the Early Birds breakfast group, where he was a frequent speaker and humorist. He gave away books to attendees who answered sports trivia questions, most of them about baseball (surprise, surprise!) He loved to tell jokes and funny stories and relished attending the Raleigh Sports Club. He and Carol cherished their time together, enjoying friends and family and taking annual baseball trips for many years with the Shackelford clan. At Big George’s 90th birthday, he threw out the first pitch of a Bulls game – calling it “one of the greatest moments of his life.”

Big George is survived by Carol and his children and their spouses/partners: Susan Shackelford (Melissa Miles), Greg Shackelford (Hal Ivey) and Sherry Hay (Smokey Hay). He is also survived by nieces and nephews in the Gilliam family, and Carol’s children, Kevin and Colleen O’Briant (Mike Wallace), their children Shay, Devin and Meghan; and daughter-in-law Laurie Atkins (Reynolds O’Briant, deceased) and Reynolds’ daughter Bella.

In keeping with Big George’s generous spirit, if anyone so desires, charitable contributions may be made to A Place at the Table, P.O. Box 26205, Raleigh, 27611; First Presbyterian Church (in memory of George Shackelford/Friendship Fund), 112 S. Salisbury Street, Raleigh, 27601; and Paws for Purple Hearts.

A visitation for George will be held Friday, July 5, 2024, from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm at Brown-Wynne Funeral Home & Crematory, 300 Saint Mary's Street, Raleigh, NC 27605. A Memorial Service will occur Saturday, July 6, 2024, at 1:00 pm at First Presbyterian Church, 112 S. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27601.