Ron Shumate shouts instruction during the 1974-75 season at UTC
photo by Contributed
Former UTC coach Ron Shumate during the 1975-76 season
photo by Contributed
Ralph Underhill, left, was Ron Shumate's assistant coach and top recruiter before a long career at Wright State
photo by Contributed
Ron Shumate, kneeling center, is shown with his Division II national championship team from the 1976-77 season
photo by Contributed
He is a regular fixture at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball games even today, although his presence in the top row Section 222 behind the basket goes relatively unnoticed. Now 85, Ron Shumate has lost some of the spryness from when he stalked the sidelines as the man in charge of Mocs basketball in the 1970s, but the thick black hair and piercing gaze take me back to 50 years ago when his outlandish dreams first brought national attention to the UTC program.
For all the success Chattanooga basketball has accomplished since moving up to Division I in 1977 – 20 Southern Conference regular season championships, 12 conference tournament titles leading to a dozen NCAA tournament appearances including one Sweet Sixteen run – Shumate served as the architect that made all of this possible.
There is a twinge of irony whenever Shumate settles into his seat at McKenzie Arena. His success while at UTC was instrumental in making a facility larger than Maclellan Gym a necessity. Essentially, the Roundhouse could aptly be called “The House That Shu Built”, and nine head coaches since then have continued to build on the foundation Shumate put in place.
After growing up in Ohio, Shumate attended Tennessee Tech as a two-sport letterman, earning accolades as a two-time All-OVC first baseman who had a brief stint in the minor leagues before two years of military service. He spent five seasons as a high school basketball coach at three different stops before joining Leon Ford’s staff at UTC in 1970.
When Ford stepped down two years later, Shumate was elevated to the top position at the age of 33 prior to the 1972-73 season. His promotion was accompanied by a brash confidence, making the bold guarantee of delivering a national championship to Chattanooga within three years.
Over the course of the next seven seasons, Shumate ushered in a new era of Chattanooga’s passionate connection with basketball that still continues today. During his tenure, the Mocs compiled a record of 139-61 for a .695 winning percentage. He brought home the promised Division II championship in 1977 after finishing runner-up the previous year. Absent the 30-24 mark compiled during UTC’s first two seasons after moving up to Division I, Shumate’s .746 rate of winning remains the program’s gold standard, slightly ahead of Murray Arnold.
Overall, Shumate was 445-232 in 23 collegiate seasons. He amassed a record of 306-171 in 16 years at Southeast Missouri from 1981-97, claiming nine 20-win seasons, eight NCAA D-II Tourney appearances with a pair of national runner-up finishes.
The Quest To Scale “Rocky Top”
It was a different era in college basketball during Shumate’s time at UTC, especially at the Division II level where there were various shades of grey when it came to NCAA oversight. He hired his former Tennessee Tech teammate Ralph Underhill as his top assistant, a well-connected high school coach in the basketball hotbed of Louisville, and he quickly became a tireless promoter from Day 1.
“You’ve got to have dreams,” Shumate said recently. “Whatever profession you're in, you’ve got to dream big and hope you can advance yourself in the program and try to fulfill the dreams. Chattanooga had a great opportunity to expand their basketball program, and I was young and cocky enough to not care what people thought.”
Shumate would speak at local civic clubs and campus gatherings, his self-confidence and contagious vision for his program initially falling upon deaf ears. He deemed his fast-paced, guard-oriented version of basketball as “The Greatest Show In Town”, even having bumper stickers printed with the slogan that began to appear around the city.
“One of my big deals was getting some people to let us borrow their spotlights in the sky on the nights we played,” Shumate said. “That worked out really well. People who were driving home from work or around town would see these spotlights, and wonder what in the world was going on. Once they got there, we'd have the spotlights on and people thought it was a really big deal.”
Something was still missing in Shumate’s campaign to captivate the community. But that conundrum was resolved after meeting with local radio host Bill Nash, a close confidante who also served as the Mocs’ play-by-play radio announcer.
“I was at the radio station and asked Bill, ‘What are we going to do?’ And he says, ‘I've got a telephone call. I'll be right back with you.’ While I was waiting, his station played ‘Rocky Top’. When Bill came back in, he said, ‘Well, what do you want to do to introduce the new season?’ I said, ‘Don't worry. I've got it. It’s ‘Rocky Top’.’ We got the band director to start playing ‘Rocky Top’ every game, and it just took on a life of its own. That went over so good for us the next year that Tennessee grabbed it and started playing it. That was one of our bright spots that helped create some enthusiasm around the program.”
Shumate painted a mental picture of the Mocs ascending a mythical destination called “Rocky Top” that he equated with the Division II national championship. The song had been released by the Osborne Brothers a few years earlier, and Shumate seized the opportunity to make it synonymous with UTC basketball long before it became a staple in Knoxville.
Larry Green was in his first year as the beat writer covering UTC sports for the Chattanooga News-Free Press when Shumate was promoted. He vividly recalls the passion with which the new Mocs leader shared his dream of where he wanted to take the program.
“The press conference where Coach Shumate offered forth the dream of “Rocky Top” for UTC basketball was closely akin to a shady sales campaign. It was on that day that I got to know Bill Nash. He would be the team’s traveling companion for many road trips, usually sitting by Shumate on the trips. I had to believe that Nash was one of the creators of the vision. It originated in the mind of Shumate, but Nash filled out the colors and gave the head coach the right phrases to tickle the imagination of the listening public.”
Scaling “Rocky Top” was a catchy new concept, but Shumate was more than a snake oil salesman. He was a visionary coach who inherited a talented roster his first year that went 19-9 and made the school’s first NCAA postseason appearance.
“Unlike most sensible men coaching the game, Shumate became an outspoken prophet for what he doubtlessly believed would be a dream come true,” Green said. “He convinced me on that first day. I was new to the UTC beat as a writer and a big dream was right up my alley. If a championship was in the offing, I wanted to be a part of it. But a city is harder to convince than a 22-year-old sportswriter. When the scoreboard in Maclellan Gym flashed victory numbers night after night, the spotlight was put on the corner of Vine and Douglas to announce to all that something special was taking place. Winning is a guarantee that ticket sales are about to rise.”
The Louisville Connection
Shumate’s initial year had sparked an interest in UTC basketball. But with the infusion of talent from Louisville thanks to Underhill’s connections entering the 1973-74 season, Mocs basketball suddenly became a hot ticket at 4,177 seat “Big Mac”.
Headlining the class of freshman was 6-foot-5 Wayne Golden, who shunned an offer from Oklahoma State before becoming UTC’s career scoring leader. William “Too Quick” Gordon, a 5-foot-10 point guard, was playing for a business school in Louisville before joining the Mocs. Post players Herbert “Book” McCray and Gary Stich completed the signing class, joining fellow Louisville product Kevin Gray who was entering his sophomore year.
“There was a lot of good players in the Louisville area, and (University of Louisville coach) Denny Crum could get whoever he wanted,” Shumate said. “I told Coach (Underhill) we would go after kids that maybe Louisville overlooked. We decided we’d recruit that area really hard, because all those kids knew each other. We really worked on Herbert because him and Wayne were good friends, and he helped us convince Wayne that's where he ought to go with him.”
With senior center Walter McGary joined by the Louisville contingent, UTC earned its first No. 1 ranking in the AP College Division poll. The Mocs finished the season 21-5 but were snubbed for a postseason berth surrounding the addition of Soddy-Daisy product Sylvester Davenport from Auburn during the season. It was deemed that the reserve forward, who provided quality depth at six points per game, was far too vital to the squad. His absence, per people who rarely if ever saw this team play, would make this squad unworthy of the postseason. At that time, transfers from different divisions still had to sit out a year. While the Mocs were prepared to play without Davenport in the postseason, they never got the chance. Chattanooga finished the 1974 regular season ranked No. 2 in the college division.
UTC went 19-9 in Shumate’s third year in 1974-75, hosting an NCAA regional for the first time where they lost to nemesis Tennessee State, 82-81. The promise of reaching the peak of “Rocky Top” did not happen within the three-year window, but each passing year resulted in another step forward in their ascent.
The next season included an infusion of two more Louisville products, junior forward Ricky Gill and freshman guard Darryl Yarbrough, bringing the total to seven. Three others – Fred Rayhle, Rick Holmes and Kevin Galbraith – hailed from Cincinnati. With Gray being the lone senior who saw meaningful minutes the prior year, expectations were high entering the season.
UTC was teetering on the brink of missing the 1976 NCAA playoffs with a 15-7 record before they caught fire. A 25-point win over D-I South Florida, a hard-fought win over Tennessee State and a 22-point shellacking of Armstrong State – all in front of rollicking crowds at Big Mac – atoned for earlier losses and primed the Mocs for a deep postseason run.
With the first three NCAA games inside hostile Maclellan Gym, the Mocs won by margins of 28, 20 and 29 points with Golden scoring a school record 41 points in the finale against Nicholls State. UTC finally made it to the Final Four in Evansville, Ind., a run that ended with an 83-74 loss to Puget Sound in the national championship contest.
The 23-9 record and runner-up finish left Shumate with some unfinished business, but finally the apex of “Rocky Top” was within sight.
Reaching The Summit
With Golden and Gordon headlining a roster with six seniors in UTC’s final season competing in Division II, Shumate and Nash came up with the year’s catchphrase for the ’76-’77 campaign: “This Will Be Our Finest Hour”. And indeed it was.
Chattanooga posted a 27-5 record, winning its final 11 games to finally reach the summit of “Rocky Top” in Shumate’s fifth season. The Mocs breezed through five NCAA tournament games, winning by an average of 14 points, including the 71-62 win over Randolph Macon in the title game held in snowy Springfield, Mass. Shumate was deservedly named the national coach of the year, and an overflow throng greeted the team at the Chattanooga airport followed by a championship parade downtown.
“I promised a national championship and I delivered a national championship plus a national runner-up trophy,” Shumate said. “That was the highlight of my coaching career. Through our success, I think I got the people to believe they could build a new arena, and that happened as well.”
Six years later UTC said farewell to Big Mac, moving into a new 11,000-seat arena dubbed “The Roundhouse”, which continues to serve as the Mocs home today.
The Move To Division I and Shumate’s Departure
With the promised national championship finally delivered, the transition into the Southern Conference and Division I presented some challenges for Shumate. Yarbrough and William Wright were the only holdovers from the previous year with much experience. Gone were Golden (2,384 career points) and Gordon (2,140 career points), who stand today as the program's top two leaders in points scored. Additionally, Underhill had taken the head coaching position at Wright State, where he won 356 games over 18 years including an NCAA Division II national title of his own.
While UTC finished the 1977-78 year 16-11 and tied for 4th in the SoCon with a 7-5 mark, it was a difficult year of transition according to Green.
“Once the cork on the intoxicating bottle of success was opened, it was impossible to get it back in place,” Green recalled. “All the talent seemed to exit simultaneously. There were no new vistas to conquer. ‘Rocky Top’ had been scaled and conquered. Dreaming the dream, we learned, was not the difficult task. There was never a huge signing year that brought such great talent to Chattanooga for the Mocs to showcase. UTC never had a second recruiting year like 1973 and that was the key to their slide. It was never Shumate. He was forever a consummate salesman and coach.”
The following year was even more challenging as UTC closed the 1978-79 schedule with a 14-13 overall and 4-9 in conference play. The luster of the national championship two years earlier began to fade, and Shumate’s self-confidence began to ruffle some feathers. More importantly, accusations were made against Shumate’s coaching staff of offering improper benefits to recruits by another SoCon member school.
“I think that Shumate rubbed some of the UT-Chattanooga leaders the wrong way,” Green said. “Like so many dreamers/salesmen, he had a foot-shaped mouth and was constantly getting in hot water with those who had more to think about than sports. There were some on-the-border moves during recruiting (everybody was doing it), but making enemies by constantly winning will bring a whistle-blower to the foreground. Western Carolina did not like some promises UTC was making to common players the two schools were recruiting. I recall hearing that part of the deal to keep what they knew silent before the NCAA was that Shumate needed to be removed.”
The allegations prompted a meeting with athletic director Harold Wilkes, and Shumate recognized that the handwriting was on the wall to end his chapter in Chattanooga.
“I was a young guy, and back then I thought I could climb the mountain regardless how steep it got,” Shumate said. “Coach Wilkes and I drove down to the lake and he told me there were allegations of us buying kids. The truth of the matter was one of our assistants bought a kid a T-shirt at the bookstore when he visited, and another one paid for a kid’s meal at McDonalds. I talked to Bill Nash about it, and he said I should probably just go ahead and resign. That's when it all started coming down on me. I thought I probably needed a break anyway, so I just went ahead and stepped down. That's biggest mistake I ever made.”
Shumate resigned in May of 1979, and Murray Arnold was named his replacement one month later. He landed at SEMO two years later to become that school’s winningest coach during his 16-year tenure, before retiring to a life of fishing on Kentucky Lake thinking his coaching days were over.
Returning To Chattanooga
But Tom Weathers coaxed Shumate out of retirement to return to Chattanooga to take over the boys’ program at Red Bank, and he closed his career with three more seasons at Soddy-Daisy before retiring for good in 2007.
Shumate is an Athletic Hall of Fame member at both UTC and SEMO, and was inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame last year. He and his wife, Peggy, reside in Hixson and attend as many Mocs games as possible. Watching the modern-day version of the program he was instrumental in building brings about a flood of emotions for Shumate.
“I was young and stupid back then, and history always wakes you up a little bit when you look back on things. But I had a good run at UTC,” Shumate said. “When they start introducing the players, all I think about is ‘Shumate, what if that was you down there? How would you handle certain situations?’
“I don't look for any publicity, and I was just a guy that did my job the best I could do. It's hard for me to believe that I'm 85 now. Time just flies, and I've been very grateful that the Lord has taken care of me and my wife to be able to still come to the games.”
The reality is that Chattanooga basketball would likely not have enjoyed the decades of success without the influence of Shumate. Aside from delivering the lone national championship, he laid the foundation that was later built upon by Arnold and Mack McCarthy and by Dan Earl today.
Shumate's love affair with Mocs basketball still continues today despite the way things ended at UTC. He rarely misses a game, his mind drifting back to the days when there wasn't an empty seat in the house at rocking Big Mac.
It’s a shame that there is little recognition for his contributions, like renaming the court in his honor or having some sort of plaque commemorating his deeds prominently displayed in the arena he helped build. After all, he was the mastermind of the greatest era in UTC basketball history who allowed us to enjoy the rarified air at the summit of “Rocky Top” for one glorious moment.
Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com