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Dr. William "Bill" McHorris
Graduated 1961

Home:
475 N. Highland St apt #12EF
Memphis, TN 38122

Work:
William H. McHorris, DDS
3100 Walnut Grove Rd. Suite 302
Memphis, TN 38111
drmchorris@aol.com

Home Phone: 901-458-9558
Work Phone: 901-454-0660
Fax: --
Email: DrMcHorris@aol.com

Bill’s profile includes his Living Memorial for the Coach Beryl Shipley Tribute, followed by his autobiography.
Posted by Dr. Ed Dugas on Sept. 6, 2017.

* * * * *
Bill’s Living Memorial for the Shipley Tribute was initially written on 4/21/2011 and resubmitted on 8/23/2017.

Coach Shipley was more than a Coach to me. Being from Kingsport, Tennessee and 970 miles from home, I turned to him for advice and guidance on many issues confronting a nineteen year old boy in a new environment.

Moving from East Tennessee from a dry county and a rather bland diet to Lafayette, Louisiana with its spicy cuisine and alcohol available on every corner would be considered by most to be a “culture shock”.

Parental guidance was necessary and Coach Shipley knew it and provided it. He was also a strict disciplinarian. If you stepped out of line, you had to pay the consequences.

Tim Thompson and I were the starting guards on our team. Tim always obeyed and followed the rules. He was a great basketball player and an excellent student— a Coach’s dream. It was also the reason he served as Captain of our team our last two years.
We were preparing for the Christmas Holiday Basketball Classic which took place during the Holidays. None of us could go home, especially the Kentucky and Tennessee players. It was too far. We were practicing twice a day with the morning practice starting at 10:00AM. I had found a local friend who would take me hunting in some of his favorite places and I went hunting at every opportunity.

I asked Tim if he wanted to go one morning and be back in time for practice. Tim was elated. He had not hunted since he left Kentucky and had never had the opportunity in Louisiana.

We went squirrel hunting the next morning at daylight. Tim had never seen so many big Fox squirrels in his life and was totally consumed with his hunt. When I approached him at 9:00AM and said we have to go in order to be back for practice he said NO, he was having too much fun, he wanted to get his limit of 8 squirrels. He thought Coach would understand. I said, “ I hope you’re right”. We continued hunting until 10:30.

We arrived back at the Campus at 11:30. There were written notes posted everywhere and on our dormitory room doors notes that said, “Thompson and McHorris report to Coach Shipley immediately.”

When Coach Shipley’s face was two shades redder than his hair, you knew you were in trouble. After a thirty minute lecture, he said, “ If you want to stay on the team, you both have to run 25 miles around the track. That is 100 laps”. He gave us a week to get it done. I think he knew that Tim, having never done anything wrong before would do it. He looked straight at me and said, “McHorris, what are you going to do?” I said, “ I was going to run 25 miles and if you had told me to, I would have run 50 miles. He said we could start today, after practice.
His face slowly returned to its normal color and everyone felt better. A good lesson learned. If you break the rules, you pay the price.

Another example of his discipline came when we all returned for our Senior year. Three of us were overweight. My playing weight was 195 lbs. I returned from a summer at home weighing 208 lbs. 13 lbs. too heavy. The other two had each gained 10 lbs. over their playing weight. He was furious. He said, “You fat boys have got 2 weeks to get rid of that fat.”
It’s not hard to sweat in southwest Louisiana, especially when the gym doors are closed and there is no air conditioning. Coach kept track of our progress. Weigh in before practice and after practice. One day, I lost seven and a half pounds and Coach Reinhardt looked concerned and warned me about too much too fast and the possibility of dehydration. I said, “Coach Reinhardt, I am more afraid of disappointing Coach Shipley than I am of dehydration.”

I went home, drank about a gallon of iced tea and when I weighed in the next day, I had only lost 4 lbs. On the thirteenth day at weigh in time, I weighed 194 lbs. Coach was pleased. The other two players never lost their required weight and were reminded of it the whole season, especially when they made a mistake.

The discipline he taught us made us better players, better students and prepared us to take on the world in whatever occupation one might desire. I have always been competitive. It is inherited. I had excellent high school coaches who also were very disciplined. Coach Shipley was a very competitive person and was a very excellent teacher and Coach. He took young boys and turned them into young men.

I was fortunate enough to graduate # 1 in my dental class. I have no doubt that he helped prepare me to do just that. Nothing less than your best effort.
Coach was very smart and was blessed with common sense as well. His ability to make adjustments at halftime was uncanny. And much more often than not resulted in a win instead of a loss.
I respected that man, I admired him and I loved him. We have been very good friends all these many years. I have never called him Beryl while in his presence. He will always be Coach to me. He even came to Memphis for me to restore his mouth. I was very proud that he had chosen me to do so.

I am so thankful to have been part of the last reunion. I came a day early just to be with him and Dolores.
Dolores Shipley is a very smart, very strong lady. She is not as big as a minute, but she has been a major part of that backbone that the “Big Red Man” possessed. During the three days I was with him, he never complained about his illness. He was still the strong, positive thinker that I have always known. His illness was the opponent and he was going to defeat it. I know he died still fighting.

I will always be indebted to this great man for helping me become the person that I am. He will always have a special place in my heart.

Bill McHorris

* * * * *
Bill graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1957. His senior year he played and lettered in all four sports. The 1957 football team was undefeated and the basketball team was favored to win the state championship. They lost in the finals when Charlie Leonard and Bill fouled out with the lead and four minutes to go in the game. The 1957 baseball team won the state championship by defeating Christian Brothers High School in Memphis. Tim McCarver was their catcher. The 1957 track team placed third in the state championship.
Bill was elected first team all-state in basketball and baseball. He made Honorable mention in football primarily because of his state record 6 interceptions on defense.

A basketball scholarship brought Bill to the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, where he was voted first team all-conference his sophomore, junior and senior years. Bill was voted 2nd team Little All American in his senior year. He lead the team in scoring all three years, scoring 1,355 points, an average of 18.8 points per game.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1961.
It was in Lafayette that he met his wife of 57 years, Jacqueline DuBois McHorris, better known as Jackie. They are the proud parents of two children. William H. McHorris, III, known as Hank, resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife, Kym and daughter Olivia. Collyn Adele McHorris Wainwright resides in Nashville, TN with her husband, Andy and their two sons, Duncan and Julian.

Graduating from the University of Tennessee, College of Dentistry, in 1964, Bill received the International College of Dentistry award for Top Scholastic Achievement. He was president of his class for 2 years, graduated first in his class, and was elected to both the Omicron Kappa Upsilon (OKU) National Dental Honor Society and the Richard Doggett Dean and Marguerite Taylor Dean Honorary Odontological Society.

Bill has maintained a Restorative Dental practice in Memphis, TN since 1965. He still practices 4 days a week and is a part-time Assistant Professor for the graduate prosthodontic program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He wrote an Occlusal Waxing manual to teach Occlusal Morphology. This manual is used in several dental schools in the U.S. and in Japan, Europe, South America and Australia.

He has also published fourteen articles in the dental literature which are available in combined form titled, “TMJ and Occlusion- A Compilation of Papers”.
Speaking extensively, he has lectured over 700 times to local, state, national and international dental groups and organizations. Presently, he is director and clinician for over 65 dental study groups in the United States, Australia, South America, Canada, Japan and Europe.

Bill has been awarded Fellowships in the American College of Dentists and the International College of Dentists and has served as president of the American Academy of Restorative Dentistry and the International Academy of Gnathology

Updated Sept. 6,2017.