Catching up with...Former Notre Dame basketball player John Shumate

Former Notre Dame basketball player -- and first-round draft pick -- John Shumate had a five-year NBA career and then returned to South Bend to be an assistant under Digger Phelps.  Shumate, over 30 years later, is still 23rd on the all-time Notre Dame scoring ledger with 1,334 points despite playing only two seasons for the Irish.
We caught up with the former Southern Methodist head coach as he came off the road from scouting for the Phoenix Suns:

Insights: So what are you up to these days?
John Shumate: "I'm the head scout for the (Phoenix) Suns and it'll be my 10th year with them. I get to watch college basketball and I'm just enjoying life."

Insights: How'd you get involved with scouting?
JS: "I got a job with the Suns. I was in community and public relations. Bryan Colangelo (then the Suns General Manager) came to me and asked if I'd like to come on the basketball operations side. It's been a wonderful experience for me. I just got back off the road."

Insights: So how many games do you watch a year?
JS: "I don't know, man. I'd just say quite a few. I've seen to date about 30 games and that's in the early part. We've got the major part to go. I'll see a minimum of 60 in those two months. I'll see a hundred games or so."

Insights: What really stands out about your time with Notre Dame basketball?
JS: "Back then, Notre Dame, we had the Austin Carr era and then a lull and a couple bad years but when we came, once (Adrian) Dantley and (Gary) Brokaw), (Dwight) Clay, (Peter) Crotty, (Gary) Novak, (Ray) Martin, Toby Knight, we really kind of unveiled the Irish as it was through its real glory days and the beginning of a tremendous basketball era in the history and era of the annals of Notre Dame. We really had special moments and a special identity and a connect with the academia world as well as the athletic world. There was respect for us as athletes because we didn't run rampant on campus. We were disciplined, focused."

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette

Comments

[Mickey Gardner]

Great interview of John Shumate. I was a manager back then and spent a lot of time working with those guys and watching. They were a very special group of individuals. Outside of the 1980 Hockey victory over the Russians (saw it on TV), being there in the ACC watching the comback against UCLA (down 11 with 3:22 left) was the most amazing moment in sports I've ever seen. John started the comeback with a basket in the lane , a steal of the inbounds pass and a layup