My update on this story looking back at the 1978 NCAA basketball tournament that was first posted in 2021.
By TOM SHANAHAN
A long time ago in a galaxy before cable TV and social media platforms gave a retired-coach-turned-neocon a platform to pontificate, the NBC TV crew of Dick Enberg, Al MGuire and Billy Packer commented on the NCAA basketball tournament with objectivity and their patented humor.
There was no Bruce Pearl on CBS and TNT embarrassingly commenting unbeaten Miami doesn’t deserve an NCAA at-large berth while ignoring his conflict of interest. His son, who benefitted from nepotism, coaches an Auburn team on the bubble for an at-large berth.
Miami’s 2026 success reminded me of the Ohio school’s 1978 Cinderella team that upset defending champion Marquette in the first round.
I was courtside for two first-round games at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Miami-Marquette was the opener followed by Providence-Michigan State. The most decorated player in the house was Marquette senior Butch Lee. The one who went on to the most success was Michigan State freshman Earvin “Magic” Johnson. The best all-around athlete was Miami senior John Shoemaker.
Eventually, Johnson and Shoemaker were connected again by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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March 3, 2021 story
Not long after Magic Johnson’s ownership group purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, the Basketball Hall of Famer spoke to employees at an organizational meeting.
Johnson, of course, draws rapt attention — no matter the subject — so somebody should have spoken up. Among the employees in attendance was Dodgers’ minor-league manager John Shoemaker. This was a chance to venture down memory lane while combining baseball with basketball.
“Hey, Magic. Remember the 1978 NCAA basketball tournament’s first-round games in Indianapolis? Well, John Shoemaker is here.”
On March 11, 1978, in separate first-round games played at Market Square Arena, Shoemaker and Magic crossed paths for the first time.
Shoemaker was a Miami (Ohio) senior point guard who was due to depart for the Dodgers’ spring training in Vero Beach. His uniform change was delayed when Miami upset defending national champion Marquette in overtime, 84-81. In the second game, Michigan State and Earvin “Magic” Johnson defeated Providence, 77-63.
Shoemaker and Magic subsequently went on separate paths until they both ended up with their storied baseball franchise.
Following the NCAA tournament, Shoemaker departed for spring training. Magic returned to Michigan State to lead the Spartans to the 1979 NCAA title. He was on his way to five NBA titles with the Lakers and establishing his corporate world success, Magic Johnson Enterprises.
In March 1978, Shoemaker had already played his first Dodgers’ minor league season in the summer after his junior year of college, 1977. Three years earlier, the NCAA began to allow college athletes to be a pro in one sport while retaining college eligibility in another.
He’s been with the Dodgers his entire career as a minor league player, coach and manager (Note: 2026 is his 50th overall). But in spring of 1978, Shoemaker’s focus was March Madness, not March spring training sunshine.
But turning back to the 1978 NCAA tournament, No. 18-ranked Miami pulled off one of those upsets that define March Madness. Shoemaker scored 20 points with six assists.
In the second game, Johnson, Michigan State’s freshman point guard, scored 14 points with seven rebounds and seven assists as the No. 4 Spartans beat unranked Providence, 77-63.
The assembled talent that day included Marquette’s Butch Lee, an All-American guard who the most decorated participant. Johnson was a freshman who proved himself the best player. Shoemaker’s aura was as the best all-around athlete.
“I called the Dodgers to tell them we won, there would be another game, and I would be coming later,” Shoemaker said. “They didn’t seem to mind. There were so many other minor league players, they weren’t going to miss me.”
Shoemaker’s humble recollection is typical of him, but it overlooks he was drafted three times in two sports: the San Francisco Giants out of high school, 1974, 26th round; the Dodgers after his junior season of college baseball, 1977, 35th round; and once by the NBA’s Chicago Bulls after his college senior basketball season, 1978, sixth round.
He played four years in the Dodgers’ farm system, rising to Triple AAA in 1980. At that point the franchise decided he had reached his ceiling on the field, but the hierarchy envisioned another future. At age 24 in 1981, he accepted a job offer as the hitting coach at Class A Vero Beach.
Up until then Shoemaker’s plan, if pro sports didn’t work out, was to coach high school basketball. He is the son of a high school coach. He senior year at Miami included student-teaching.
“I looked at my career path, and I had a couple of options,” said Shoemaker, now 64 (Note: 69 in 2026). “I could have said, ‘I think I can still play’ and try to hook up with another organization. Or I could have said I’m not sure I want to coach baseball. But had I not signed with the Dodgers, I’d be coaching high school basketball. That piqued my interest.
“I do know I wouldn’t have lasted much longer as a player. Coaching with the Dodgers has been a great choice for me. I was in the right place at the right time to be with the most cherished franchise in the world.”
Shoemaker’s longevity with the franchise has him compared to Tommy Lasorda, the Dodgers’ Baseball Hall of Fame manager for 20 seasons, but his personality more closely resembles Walter Alston, the Dodgers Baseball Hall of Fame manager for 23 years prior to Lasorda.
Alston and Shoemaker both came from small Ohio towns and played basketball and baseball at Miami. Small world. They remained small-town by nature, deflecting the spotlight.
Lasorda’s personality would have elbowed his way on the stage next to Magic at that organizational meeting. Alston would have stayed in the background. And that’s what Shoemaker did on that day.
When Johnson’s talk ended, Shoemaker could see others were eager to meet the L.A. Lakers great. Not wanting to interrupt, he went about his workday. Since then (Note: as of 2021), Johnson and Shoemaker have been at spring training the same day but always at opposite ends of the complex. Shoemaker kept working, instructing his young prospects. Two of Shoemaker’s managing stints made him a visiting Michigander, leading the Greak Lakes Loons in Midland (2010-12 and 2018-2020).
“He has been the model for all of us, and the legacy we try to uphold with the Dodgers,” said Will Rhymes, the franchise’s Director of Player Development, who formerly played for the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays. “He has very little ego and incredible authenticity. He sets standards with young players at an early age. They learn what it means to be a professional and understand the game.”
Shoemaker, over the length of his career, has been credited with helping develop 133 big leaguers (Note: as of 2021), including Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez along with Dodgers greats Clayton Kershaw, Eric Gagne, Eric Karros and Adrian Beltre. He is quick to add, “around here, we feel we all contributed,” but the franchise didn’t honor “all” of them in a Sept. 16, 2015, on-field ceremony at Dodger Stadium.
Shoemaker was named “Captain of Player Development.” The unique title includes having him wear a “C” on his manager jersey. His 2021 assignment, when minor league baseball resumes from the COVID-19 pandemic, is with the Dodgers’ Class A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes in southern California.
In another small-world story, nine years after the NCAA game I was working for the San Diego Union- Tribune when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was the quarterback who led Rancho Buena Vista High to the CIF-San Diego Section Division II title. Roberts, of course, later played 10 years in Major League Baseball, including with the San Diego Padres (2005-06), prior to his becoming the Dodgers’ manager in 2016.
Shoemaker’s career path into pro baseball began as one of the first college athletes to take advantage of a new NCAA rule. He played the summer of 1977 in the Midwest League with Class A Clinton, Iowa, and returned to the Oxford campus in the fall for his senior 1977-78 basketball season.
“Once you’re here, his basketball is well known among everyone in Player Development,” said Rhymes, who was born five years after the Miami-Marquette game. “We like to throw old pictures at him playing college basketball. It’s such a cool thing.”
The pictures include Shoemaker wearing canvas high-top Converse shoes.
Miami’s upset of Marquette marked the first time since the NCAA expanded to a 32-team field in 1975 a defending national champion was upset in the first round.
“I remember Michigan State’s fans started filling the arena at the end of our game,” Shoemaker said. “When they sensed an upset, we could feel them get behind us. I always remembered that.”
Rehashing the Miami-Marquette game was a trip down memory lane for more than Shoemaker. I was a Michigan State senior sports editor for our college paper, The State News. Colleague Mike Klocke and I were both wide-eyed kids for our first NCAA experience. The same was true for Terence Moore, who was then a senior sports editor for The Miami Student prior to his long sportswriting career.
Small world.
“After 42 years as a professional sports journalist — even though it happened in college — that’s still one of my five most unforgettable moments,” Moore said. “That was incredible.”
Moore is now a professor at his alma mater, but his career included covering pro teams in Cincinnati, the San Francisco Bay Area and most recently as a columnist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His classmate still stands out for more than his talent all these years later.
“John Shoemaker was ferocious,” Moore said. “He was Pete Rose; that kind of intensity. He is one of the 10 or 15 fiercest competitors I’ve ever seen.
John Shoemaker in Zoom call on the play with Jerome Whitehead
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Shoemaker sparked the game’s turning point from a 10-point deficit with a steal, although as he drove to the basket Marquette senior guard Jim Boylan blocked the shot. As Shoemaker regained his footing, Marquette’s Jerome Whitehead, a 6-foot-10, 220-pound senior center who went on to play 11 NBA seasons, grabbed the rebound.
“I had gotten the steal,” Shoemaker said. “I don’t know if you could classify it as a breakaway, but somebody (Boylan) was on my shoulder. I put up a shot and they pinned it or swatted it up on the backboard. The rest of the team came down, and Jerome got the rebound. One of our guys came over his back and probably fouled him, but they didn’t call it. I was behind Whitehead because I had just gone in for the shot.
“He’s out here doing all this stuff (demonstrates swinging elbows with the ball), and I came in to try and to get a steal. You see guys try to clear people off and they never hit anybody. Well, just as he coming that way, I was moving in. It wasn’t the point of the elbow, or I would have been in bad shape. It was more the meat of the forearm. I went in and went down. I wasn’t knocked out, but I was dazed a little bit.”
Referee Pete Pavia called a flagrant foul and ejected Whitehead. Such calls were viewed differently in those days and trips to the monitor were far off into the future. Athletes had more leeway swinging elbows to clear space; basketball was a more physical game. It’s akin to baseball brushback pitches then and now.
When Marquette coach Hank Raymonds protested vociferously the foul wasn’t intentional, Raymonds was whistled for his first technical of the year.
Shoemaker remained prone on the court for two minutes until he was walked wobbly back to the bench. Marquette led 68-58 with 3:38 to play. Rich Babcock came off the bench for Shoemaker to make one of two free throws. Then starter Archie Aldridge (19 points) made two free throws for Raymonds’ technical. Miami retained possession with Rich Goins (18 points) scoring off the inbounds play.
The five-point play had suddenly halved Miami’s deficit to 68-63.
Shoemaker, who didn’t consider Whitehead’s elbow a dirty play, returned to the game. He hit two long shots from the side banked off the glass in the era before three-point field goals. That was not unusual for kids that grew up watching the Boston Celtics guard Sam Jones and his patented bank shot. The Basketball Hall-of-Famer played alongside Bill Russell through 1969 on 10 NBA title teams.
Shoemaker, Randy Ayers (20 points) – a Phoenix Suns assistant coach who was formerly Ohio State’s head coach – and their teammates managed to force overtime. With the score tied 75-75, Miami outscored Marquette in OT, 9-6.
Next up for Miami was No. 1-ranked Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen. The Miami campus was buzzing. A pep rally was staged at Millett Hall, the basketball arena. Shoemaker spoke to the fans and referenced a column Moore had written in early February when the team had slumped.
The Mid-American Conference regular-season title was at risk. In a 32-team NCAA tournament, the MAC only received one bid. Conference tournaments, other than the ACC, hadn’t proliferated yet.
Moore had written that the MAC preseason favorites were letting a league title and NCAA opportunity slip away. His story listed what they needed to do to secure the title, and he wryly added they also needed to “swim the English Channel at midnight.”
For Moore, it was an early journalism lesson. Coaches and athletes like to say they don’t read stories. Moore thought it was a legitimate critique the team was underachieving. The players and coach Darrell Hedric did read the story and thought it was unfair criticism.
In Shoemaker’s pep talk to fans at Miami basketball arena, he borrowed from Moore’s column, listing everything the team had done to reach the NCAA tournament and upset Marquette. Then, his voice dripping with sarcasm, added, “We even swam the English Channel at midnight!”
It was one of the few times the Shoemaker showed his bulldog on-court personality out of competition, but both Shoemaker and Moore laugh about the moment now. They express their respect for each other.
Miami’s Cinderella story, though, struck midnight on March 16, 1978, in the Sweet Sixteen. Eventual national champion Kentucky beat Miami, 90-69. If there had been one more “ball” for Cinderella Miami to attend two days later in the Elite Eight, Shoemaker and Magic would have met head-to-head. Michigan State routed Western Kentucky 91-69 to advance, but the Spartans fell to Kentucky in the Mideast Regional final, 52-49. Kentucky won the national title, beating Duke 94-88.
With Miami’s season complete, Shoemaker repacked his bags for Vero Beach. He spent the summer of 1978 playing for Class A Lodi, California. As an infielder, he batted .317 with 93 runs scored and 55 RBI.
In June, his parents called to tell him he had been drafted by the Bulls – the NBA draft was virtually obscure in those days. He joined the Bull’s preseason camp after the minor league season ended, but he was let go. He had cast his future with baseball by then, although he thinks he would have had a better chance to make the Bulls roster if he had been able to join the team for the summer rookie league.
Six years later, Michael Jordan joined the Bulls as their first-round draft pick. If Shoemaker made the team, maybe he would have played the future roles of John Paxon and Steve Kerr.
Shoemaker’s leadership and work ethic that earned the Dodgers’ coaching job have always stood out. Moore said it came as no surprise to him to learn the Dodgers had honored his old Miami classmate as “Captain of Player Development.”
“Ho hum,” Moore said. “What else is new?”
Another baseball spring training is here and another NCAA March Madness. Maybe one of these days at a future organization meeting somebody will raise a hand and point out Shoemaker to Magic. They can talk baseball and basketball. It will take some scheduling, though, to arrange their two busy schedules.
“John is the hardest worker,” Rhymes said. “When we’re in spring training, he’s there early in the morning. You can’t beat him to the complex, even when we have a night game. He’s a tireless worker, an incredible guy.”
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Visit my homepage: TomShanahan.Report
— Click here for book review and purchase link: THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s and here for a purchase link to RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.
— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.
— Documentary synopsis: Duffy documentary snynopsis.pdf – Google Drive
— I will debate anybody, anytime, anywhere Duffy Daugherty led college football integration
— My FWAA first-place story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and segregation
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’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama.
— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.
— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”
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PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books
— RAYE OF LIGHT, August Publications or on Amazon.
— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.
PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books
— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.
— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP, coming soon on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
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