Bill Sheppell
American soccer player

William Sheppell (March 11, 1926 - August 24, 2012), also known as Billy Sheppell, was an American soccer forward who played in both the American Soccer League and German American Soccer League. He earned ten caps with the U.S. national team in 1949 and 1954 and was a member of the 1952 U.S. Olympic Soccer team.
Club career
Sheppell grew up in New Jersey and attended Kearny High School where he was an outstanding high school soccer player, graduating in 1944. In 1999, he was named by The Star-Ledger as one of the top ten New Jersey high school soccer players of the 1940s-1960s.
In 1943, while still in high school, Sheppell signed with Kearny Celtic of the American Soccer League (ASL). He played with Celtic until the end of the 1946–1947 season. That year, Sheppell entered Seton Hall University, where he played on the school's soccer team. He was a 1948 Second Team and a 1950 First Team All American in 1950. [1]
As he did in high school, Sheppell played for an outside club team during the scholastic off season. In 1947, he joined the Newark German-Americans of the German American Soccer League.
The public source identifies “Bill Sheppell” as american soccer player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bill, Sheppell and American.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bill Sheppell”, the useful work is to connect “american soccer player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q10403000. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2012, 1949 and 1954.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bill Sheppell”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bill Sheppell primary sources, Bill Sheppell archive and Bill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bill Sheppell”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bill Sheppell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.