It was 2005, Brian Neal recalls, of the day when the young coach was in his second year heading up the Thomas More women’s basketball team. But he knew he needed some balance in his approach to the game.

The man he hired to help round him out as a coach, Tim Shields , “had a softer edge than I did then, I was pretty firm,” Neal says of Shields. “He had a smile, and that chuckle that let you know it wasn’t always the end of the world.”

In his second stint now at Thomas More, Neal says Shields, who died this week at the age of 78, there was one reason why he reached out to him: “his experience.”

That more than 50 years of experience at Conner Middle School and High School, Villa Madonna Academy and TMU, will certainly be remembered Monday at the 4-6 p.m. visitation at Florence Methodi

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