The reality of how much things have changed will come on a day in May next spring. Greg Shelton will lead his baseball team out on Greg Shelton Field, as he has done hundreds of times in the past. The difference, however, is that he will be coming from the third base dugout, not the home side down the first base line.

“Unless I can talk them into letting us use the home dugout,” he says with a wry smile. That's not about to happen, he's well aware.

Greg Shelton served as the head coach of Franklin-Simpson baseball for 995 games between 1976 and 2004. He won 678 of those games, including one state, two sectional, six region and 11 district championships in 29 seasons. His Wildcats suffered only one losing season in almost three decades.

“He literally built the baseball field that is now Greg Shelton Field,” says Charlie Portmann, editor of the Franklin Favorite and one of Shelton's former players. “With the help of a lot of us players, he transformed it from a swamp into a great place to play high school baseball.”

Shelton's not the Top Cat any more, at least in the context of the Franklin-Simpson Wildcats. Instead he accepted leadership of a different breed of cat last week. Greg Shelton is now the head coach of a district foe, the Russellville Panthers.

“I guess I'm coming back to where I started,” says Shelton, whose first coaching job was leading the Post 29 American Legion baseball team in Russellville. “I began coaching them while I was pitching for Western, and I continued to coach Post 29 a couple of years after I became the Franklin coach. Some of my Franklin player came with me to play for that team.”

One of the Post 29 players was Lewisburg's Steve Cauley, a former head softball coach at Franklin-Simpson. Another was Russellville's Kelly Russell, a Murray State University signee who lost his life after being struck by a thrown baseball while warming up for the 1974 regional tournament . Shelton will now coach home games on Kelly Russell Field at RHS.

Shelton grew up not far from Russellville as part of the Lewisburg community. He had a solid high school career in Lewisburg Ranger baseball and basketball, highlighted by his senior team shocking Adairville and Auburn in the 1971 district basketball tournament. The Rangers were coached by former F-S standout, Bob Birdwhistell. One of his teammates was David Danks, whose son Zak led Logan County to some historic wins against Shelton's Wildcats in 2000. But in typical Greg Shelton fashion, the Cats beat the Cougars in the regional finals that year on Greg Shelton Field.

Another 1971 Ranger teammate was his cousin, freshman Eddie Shelton, who led the team in scoring in that tournament on the way to a standout high school and college career. Greg comes from a family of high athletic achievers. His dad, the late Morris Shelton, was a starter for the Rangers' county and district basketball champions in 1942 before becoming the long-time principal of Chandlers High School. His uncle, the late Earle Shelton, led Lewisburg High to state, started for WKU in the NIT finals at Madison Square Garden, and coached Olmstead to memorable victories, including an upset of Lewisburg in 1957. His late brother, Gary Shelton, was a two-time all-district performer for the Rangers and then became a successful and respected coach at Olmstead and Allen County-Scottsville. His cousin, Griffin Joiner, is the starting catcher for the University of Kentucky softball team.

The relative who may have had the most to do with his accepting the RHS job is his mother, Hattie Ruth Shelton, even though that wasn't her intention. She retired in 1997 after serving as the secretary at Lewisburg School for 42 years under five each of superintendents, principals and board members. Greg sees her just about every weekend now, but he will be much closer to her in Russellville than he has been the past eight years coaching baseball at Beech High School in Hendersonville, Tenn.

This move should not be interpreted that Hattie Ruth Shelton had dreamed of her son becoming a coach at Russellville. “She told me she doesn't have Panther blood flowing through her. She said, 'I don't think I've ever pulled for Russellville, but I guess I will now,'” Coach Shelton laughs.

“I'm pleased for him to be back in Russellville,” Mrs. Shelton told The LoJo Sunday afternoon while she was watching the Phillies play a major league baseball game. “You know one of Greg's players, Joe Blanton, pitches for the Phillies. I just want Greg to do what he wants to do. I'm sure I will learn to be a Panther baseball fan.”

Shelton says he has yet to talk with his high school coach, Birdwhistell, but he assumes the former Logan County High School athletic director and principal will express his opinion colorfully about Shelton's having donned Black and Gold.

One of the reasons he accepted the coaching offer is how well he was treated when he came to Russellville to meet school officials. Roy Morgan, one of the owners of Roy's Bar-B-Q, arranged for Shelton to have lunch at Roy's, and a number of people told Shelton how much they hoped he would become the Panther bench boss. One of the Morgan brothers, John, played Legion ball for Shelton almost 40 years ago.

Greg is the second new/highly successful coach to take a key position at RHS in the past few months. Phil Todd has returned as the Panthers' basketball coach, a position he manned for 13 seasons. In fact, his last year to coach RHS basketball was Shelton's final year at F-S. Shelton, too, has been a basketball coach. In fact, his 2002 Franklin team upset Todd's Panthers for the district championship. The Panthers had reached the state Final Four the two previous seasons.

Not only will he be coaching at RHS, but he will also be teaching physical education at the school. That schedule became available when former boys basketball/golf coach

Greg's not the only family member who will now be driving west to work from their Franklin home. His wife Kathy has recently begun her duties as Officer in Charge of the Adairville Post Office. Also the Sheltons own a second home on Lake Malone in the Lewisburg area.

The Sheltons will continue to live in Franklin. Daughter Brittany and her two children are there. One son, Jordan, also lives in Franklin while his brother, Eric, is a resident of Greenville, not too far from Lewisburg.

“It's really hard to leave Beech. I've had a great experience there, and we have some future professional players coming back. I also don't want people in Franklin to be mad because I'm going to another school in the district. Franklin has a coach, and I've devoted a great portion of my life to that program. I'm not mad at anybody and I don't want to make anyone mad. I'm just an old baseball coach, and I want to do that as long as I can.”

One of Shelton's Franklin players, Craig Delk, has been the Wildcat coach during the eight seasons since Greg's departure. He has recently been named middle school principal at F-S. He's going to try to keep coaching while serving as a principal. Matthew Wilhite, one of Shelton's players who became a professional, is softball coach at F-S.

Shelton, a two-time Kentucky Coach of the Year, also owns Pearls Baseball and Softball Academy in Franklin. He gives lessons by appointment. Working with him is his long-time pitching coach, Johnny Vance, a former professional player himself. Vance is now head coach at Barren County High School and wants to play Russellville next spring. “I don't know anything about our schedule yet. When we get an athletic director, I'll find out about scheduling,” Shelton says. Principal Kim McDaniel says she hopes to name an athletic director this week following Todd's retirement from that job.

Coach Shelton would like to resume some scheduling traditions he had at Franklin-Simpson, including taking a spring break trip in the deep South, maybe Florida. First will come meetings with potential Panther players in the not-too-distant future.

Shelton has coached against the Wildcats three times while leading the Beech Buccaneers. Beech went 2-1 against the Cats. The one loss was on neutral territory at Greenwood in 2010. Beech won 9-1 at Greg Shelton field in 2011.

“I don't want to play Franklin, but there's no way around it when we're in the same district,” he says. “Now these games will mean something.” The Panthers have beaten the Cats in two of the last three district tournaments, including 2-0 this year.

Greg Shelton, 59, is following fellow Hall of Fame coach Lou Kendall as the RHS bench boss. Kendall coached the Panthers for 30 seasons. His last one ended in the regional semifinals in late May. That team lost three talented seniors. Thomas Shifflett will play college baseball for Kentucky Wesleyan. Seth Washington is an invited walk-on at Murray State. Caleb Wills had small college offers but is at the University of Kentucky on an academic scholarship.

The Panthers return six starters from this year's 29-win team, including two players from the 2009 Little League World Series team, Barrett Croslin and Zach Denney. A couple of postseason pitchers, Corey Wright and Crewsdon Kemp, also return, as do key players Tyler Hall and Zach Lee. But Shelton knows a key to fielding a championship squad is building depth. “It's a different situation from what I'm accustomed to, and I'm motivated by this challenge,” Greg Shelton says. “We'll roll up our sleeves and work as hard as we can.”