The Speaker for our next meeting will be David Shumate, the Director of Broadcasting for the Blue Devil IMG Sports Network. In this role, he serves as the play-by-play voice for Duke football and men’s basketball games.
A native North Carolinian, Shumate graduated from Appalachian State University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science degree in communication with a concentration in electric media and broadcasting. He started freelancing with ISP Sports—earning $30 to call a coaches’ show, maybe $100 for a football game—where he’d drive two hours each way and barely break even. He became an administrator in the Greensboro school system, which brought him closer to ISP in Winston-Salem and left him time in the evenings for announcer gigs. The following year, Shumate moved to Auburn as a temporary fill-in. But when the team’s longtime announcer died from cancer, he stayed on for two years there before moving back to Winston-Salem, where he steadily progressed at IMG College (the multimedia rightsholder for sports at more than ninety schools, including Duke; IMG acquired ISP in 2010).
Prior to moving to Durham, Shumate spent the previous five years as IMG’s Director of Audio Operations. His broadcasting experience includes play-by-play duties for the Mid-American Conference championship football game (2010-16), SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament (2011-17) and SEC Baseball Tournament (2013-17). Shumate also handled basketball play-by-play responsibilities for Auburn, Connecticut, Duke, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt, Washington, and West Virginia between 2011-17.
Mark Your Calendar
4/19/23 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
5/3/23 – Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced
5/17/23 – Yet Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach at Duke. While at Duke, Pollard has coached more than 33 Major League Baseball Draft picks, 16 All-ACC selections, four Freshmen All-Americans and three All-Americans. In addition, he has led the program to two Super Regionals (2018, 2019) and an ACC Baseball Tournament Championship title (2021), each the first in program history. Duke reached three consecutive postseasons (2018, 2019, 2021) for the first time in program history and his first postseason appearance in 2016 broke a 55- year drought. In 2021, Pollard became the first Duke coach to reach 100 career ACC wins, becoming one of six active head coaches to achieve that mark at the time.
Our guest speaker for next meeting will be Professional and UNC Basketball player, Tyler Zeller. As a freshman at UNC he played on the 2009 national championship team, and as a senior was an All-American and the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. Following college, Zeller was a first-round draft pick of the Dallas Mavericks then traded that same night to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He played 2 seasons with Cleveland, 3 seasons with the Boston Celtics, and had stints with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Atlanta Hawks, the Memphis Grizzlies and the San Antonio Spurs. He was named to the NBA’s All- Rookie team following his first season in Cleveland.
