UNCW Athletics to retire Sheila Boles’ jersey

WILMINGTON,NC (UNCW Sports)–UNCW women’s basketball career scoring leader Gwen Austin is getting company in the rafters of Trask Coliseum.

Sheila Boles, the school’s first female scholarship student-athlete and a trailblazer in college and high school sports in the state of North Carolina, will have her No. 25 jersey retired by the Seahawks in a special halftime ceremony on Feb. 9, 2020, at Trask Coliseum.

Austin’s jersey was retired on Feb. 23, 2014, and Boles joins the record-setting scorer six years later as the only women’s players bestowed with the honor. Both former Seahawk standouts are members of the UNCW Athletic Hall of Fame.

A native of Fayetteville, N.C., Boles was a two-sport student-athlete for the Seahawks from 1973-76. She played on the school’s first women’s basketball team in 1973 and became the school’s first recipient of a women’s basketball scholarship in 1974. Boles was a three-time team MVP in women’s basketball and was named NAIA District 28 Player-of-the-Year in 1976.

Boles, who also played on the volleyball team that captured the 1974 AIAW state championship, continued to excel upon graduation, earning recognition as an outstanding coach and administrator during an accomplished 31-year career.

She coached boy’s basketball locally at John T. Hoggard High School, compiling a 167-121 record in 11 seasons, and then served as the school’s athletic director from 1999-2008.

Boles has collected an array of honors for her coaching and administrative skills. She was named NCHSAA Athletic Director of the Year in 2008 and was inducted into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame and Greater Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.

She became the 42nd individual inducted into the UNCW Athletic Hall of Fame on Feb. 4, 2012, and in March of that same year, she was honored by the Colonial Athletic Association as a CAA Legend at the league’s championship tournament in Upper Marlboro, Md.

On Oct. 18, 2017, the new gymnasium at Hoggard was dedicated in her honor as a tribute to her many achievements and leadership with the Viking program.