Karen Shelton

Karen Christina Shelton, born November 14, 1957, is an American former field hockey player and coach. She was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1977 to 1984 and a starter on the team that won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She also qualified for the 1980 Olympic team but did not compete because of the boycott of the Moscow Games, and was later one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. At West Chester State she won the Honda Award as the nation's best field hockey player three years in a row and played on four NCAA championship teams, three in field hockey and one in lacrosse. As head coach of the University of North Carolina field hockey program from 1981 until her retirement in 2022 she led the Tar Heels to ten NCAA Championships and 25 Atlantic Coast Conference championships, and the team's stadium bears her name.