She's Got Game

Shelly Dearden coaches a basketball powerhouse at EwingHigh School. But it’s not the girls team, it’s the boys squad.

- Matthew Stanmyre

Shelly Dearden has a ritual: She likes to be the last person off the bus and the last one out of the locker room when her team travels for away games.

Over the years, the routine often has led to confusion.

Game officials will approach the first man they see in blue-and-white Ewing High School garb— usually long time athletic trainer David Csillan—and greet him with a warm, “Hey,Coach.”That’s when C sillan will shake his head, inform them he’s not the person who runs the powerhouse Ewing Highboys basketball program and point to the middle aged woman straggling into the gymnasium.

“She’s the coach,”Csillan will tell the officials, their mouths often agape.

Not that you can blame them for being a little puzzled. Dearden, 53, is believed to be the only woman currently serving as head coach of one of New Jersey’s 405 high school boys varsity basketball teams. She’s also believed to be one of only a handful of women coaching boys varsity basketball across the United States, although no official gender statistics are available.

Not only is Dearden coaching the boys at Ewing in one of the most competitive states for basketball in the country, but she’s doing so with astounding success. She guided the Blue Devils to the Group 2 state championship in 2012, becoming the first woman to coach a boys basketball team to NewJersey state title.Meanwhile, her team has become a statewide juggernaut and among the most highly ranked squads in New Jersey, year in and year out.

The fact that Dearden’s a woman? It’s pretty irrelevant at this point, those close to the coach say.