Lito Decorian Sheppard (born April 8, 1981) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach and former

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

. During his playing career, he played in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for ten seasons. He was drafted by the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

in the first round of the

2002 NFL Draft The 2002 NFL draft was the 67th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The draft is known officially as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting" and has been conducted annually sinc ...

after playing

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. He played for the Eagles for seven seasons, and was selected to the

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

twice. He also played for the NFL's

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

, and

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

. As a coach, he was the safeties coach for the

Orlando Apollos The Orlando Apollos were a professional American football franchise based in Orlando, Florida, and one of the eight members of the Alliance of American Football (AAF), which began play in February 2019. The team played its home games at Spectru ...

of the

Alliance of American Football The Alliance of American Football (AAF) was a professional American football minor league. The AAF consisted of eight centrally owned and operated teams in the southern and western United States, seven of which were located in metropolitan are ...

(AAF) in 2019.

Early years

Sheppard was born in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

in 1981.Pro-Football-Reference.com, Players
Lito Sheppard
Retrieved April 12, 2011. He attended

William M. Raines High School William Marion Raines Senior High School is a historically black high school in Jacksonville, Florida. The school is located off Moncrief Road in Jacksonville, Florida's northside at the corner Raines Avenue in northwest Jacksonville. Raines serv ...

in Jacksonville, where he was an all-state selection and ''

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'' All-American at

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

for the Raines Vikings high school football team. FHSAA unveils '100 Greatest Players of First 100 Years' as part of centennial football celebration
," Florida High School Athletic Association (December 4, 2007). Retrieved May 26, 2011. Sheppard had eighteen

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

s in twenty-nine games as a junior and senior, and led the Vikings to an undefeated season and a state championship in 1998. In 2007, eight years after he graduated from high school, the

Florida High School Athletic Association The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) is an organization whose purpose is to organize sports competition for high schools in Florida. It is a member of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). Florida uses ...

(FHSAA) recognized Sheppard as one of the "100 Greatest Players of the First 100 Years" of Florida high school football.

College career

Sheppard accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the

in Gainesville, Florida,GatorZone.com, Football History, 2001 Roster
Lito Sheppard
. Retrieved April 12, 2011. where he played for coach

Steve Spurrier Stephen Orr Spurrier (born April 20, 1945) is an American former American football, football quarterback and coach who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often ...

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of ...

team from

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

.
2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide
'', University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 80, 89, 94, 97, 136, 148–150, 154, 185 (2011). Retrieved August 31, 2011. He was a first-team All-American as a sophomore in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, and a first-team All-

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

(SEC) selection in 2000 and 2001. In his three-season college career, he started twenty-two games, recorded eight interceptions, had eighty-seven tackles, and returned twenty-seven kickoffs for 472 yards (an average of 22.5 yards per return). Sheppard declared himself eligible for the

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

after his junior year. In one of a series of articles published by ''The Gainesville Sun'' in 2006, he was ranked as No. 44 among the 100 greatest Gators from the first 100 years of Florida football.

Professional career

Philadelphia Eagles

In the

, Sheppard was selected in the first round (twenty-sixth pick overall) by the

. In 2004 Sheppard had five interceptions, including two returned for touchdowns. He was named Defensive Player of the Month for the month of November after returning two interceptions for touchdowns. Sheppard was selected to his first Pro Bowl in 2004, and he was also named first-team All-Pro for his first and only year. 2005 was the first of three injury-filled seasons for Sheppard. He missed six games and finished with three interceptions. On October 8, 2006, Sheppard became the first player in NFL history to have two interception returns of more than 100 yards. Both returns came against the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...

(2004 and 2006). The most recent return sealed a 38–24 win over the Cowboys and secured 1st place in the division for the Eagles. In the Eagles Wild Card playoff game on January 7 against the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

, Sheppard dislocated his

elbow The elbow is the region between the arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and the media ...

. He missed the next playoff game against the

Saints In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual res ...

, which the Eagles lost 27-24. In a 2007 game against the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

Sheppard suffered an injury. Sheppard went through another injury-filled season and finished with two interceptions. In the 2008 offseason, the

signed former

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

cornerback

Asante Samuel Asante T. Samuel Sr. (born January 6, 1981) is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback in the National Football League (NFL). He was born in Accra, Ghana and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He played college fo ...

, which fueled speculation that Sheppard was available via trade. Sheppard changed agents to

Drew Rosenhaus Drew Jordan Rosenhaus (born October 29, 1966) is an American sports agent who represents professional football players. He owns the Miami-based sports agency Rosenhaus Sports, and has negotiated over $7 billion of NFL contracts. Early life an ...

soon afterwards. During the 2008 season, Sheppard saw much reduced action due to good performances by starting corners

and Sheldon Brown.

New York Jets

Sheppard was traded to the

on February 28, 2009, for a fifth round pick in the

2009 NFL Draft The 2009 NFL Draft was the seventy-fourth annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The draft took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, New York, on April 25 and 26, 2009. T ...

and a conditional pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. The Jets restructured Sheppards' contract, adding one year and "new" money to the contract in 2010. He was released on March 4, 2010.

Minnesota Vikings

Sheppard signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the

on April 21, 2010. He became a free agent following the 2010 season.

Oakland Raiders

Sheppard was signed by the

on August 26, 2011, released during the final cuts on September 3, and then re-signed by the team on October 31. During the remainder of the season, he played in nine games and started seven of them. He became a free agent after the season.

NFL statistics

Key * GP: games played * COMB: combined tackles * TOTAL: total tackles * AST: assisted tackles * SACK: sacks * FF: forced fumbles * FR: fumble recoveries * INT: interceptions * IR YDS: interception return yards * AVG IR: average interception return * LNG: longest interception return * TD: interceptions returned for touchdown * PD: passes defensed

Coaching career

In 2017, Sheppard became the defense coach for the James Weldon Johnson Trojans and won many games with them.

References

External links

Florida Gators player profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sheppard, Lito 1981 births Living people All-American college football players American football cornerbacks Florida Gators football players Minnesota Vikings players National Conference Pro Bowl players New York Jets players Oakland Raiders players Orlando Apollos coaches Philadelphia Eagles players Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida William M. Raines High School alumni