Dan Shell enjoys basketball, whether he is coaching or officiating.

So when he decided to retire as a teacher at Blanchester High School following the 2017-18 school year, Shell didn’t want to feel like he was giving anything less than his best to his BHS freshman boys basketball team.

“It will be a transition year for the FFA and agriculture education program to new leadership,” said Shell. “I want to devote my time to that transition of the program next year and don’t want to feel I am shorting any of my obligations to my team. So it is the right time and I am healthy and ready to be a spectator and sit with my wife and support Blanchester basketball.“

Shell has been coaching or officiating basketball for 36 years, finishing with two straight unbeaten Southern Buckeye Athletic & Academic Conference seasons with Wildcats ninth-grade squads.

“I was always told I would know when it was time to step down,” Shell said. “That feeling would come and I always laughed about that but I know in my heart it is time.”

A Liberty Union High School and Ohio State University graduate, Shell began his coaching career in the 1980s at Miami Trace High School with the freshman football team while he was the Fayette County 4-H Extension Agent.

He arrived at BHS in 1990 and has coached at all levels, including a stint as the varsity girls basketball coach. However, Shell admits some of the best advice he received about coaching came from Kermit Zimmerman.

“I picked his brain on coaching kids; we spent a lot of time talking sports,” said Shell. “He molded me as a teacher and a coach.

“As I grew as a coach, I began to understand the game and coaching was more than just basketball. Although wrestling was far from basketball, (Zimmerman) had a great deal of success. I used what I learned from those conversations as I developed my coaching strategies.”

Shell began officiating in 1981 while a student at Ohio State University. The late Fred Beekman involved Shell in officiating the Special Olympics state basketball tournament.

“From that experience, my interest (in officiating) grew,” said Shell.

While in Fayette County, Shell learned the ins and outs of officiating with Bob Pittser, Gordon McCarty, Wayne Arnold and John Bernard.

“They mentored me along the way,” Shell said. “Loved working with experienced officials to learn more.”

Shell traveled from Springfield to Gallipolis to Columbus to Cincinnati for games. He also officiated games at Wilmington College when “they had cancellations or officials who could not make it.”

While many schools now have new facilities, Shell remembers his early days as an official when the gyms were extremely small.

“Like the old Whiteoak High School gym where the end walls were the outs of bounds,” he said. “The first row of fans sat with their feet on the floor and the over and back line was the free throw line. Some guyms even had the center circle interlocking with the free throw circle on each end.

“Some schools had no facilities for officials to get dressed, so you dressed in the closet of the principal’s office. The game and facilities have come a long way. This will be really hard to give up.”

Shell won’t say he’ll never don the black and white stripes again.

“I’m not sure you might see me out there a few times if I get that urge again,” he said. “I really think over the years officiating made me a better coach and coaching has made me a better official.”