UNMC cardiologist shares family legacy with MLK speaker

Diane Ariza, Ph.D., and UNMC’s Scott Shurmur, M.D., visit about Albion College.

When UNMC cardiologist Scott Shurmur, M.D., read the name of the 2003 NHS/UNMC Martin Luther King Day speaker — Diane Ariza, Ph.D. — it didn’t ring a bell. But the name of her college — Albion College in Albion, Mich. — brought a flood of memories.

Dr. Shurmur’s father, Fritz Shurmur, is one of Albion’s College most illustrious alumni, including the namesake of Albion College’s Fritz Shurmur Educational Institute.

Although Dr. Shurmur was only 3 when his dad’s coaching career took the family away from Albion, his parents never tired of talking about their great years in Albion.

“My father came to Albion College in 1950,” Dr. Shurmur said. “He was an outstanding athlete in high school and Albion recruited him by promising free meals. At Albion, dad went from being a rough and tumble blue-collar kid to a very successful student. He was student body president, fraternity president, all-conference player in baseball and an all-conference MVP in football.”

After graduation, Fritz Shurmur stayed at Albion nine more years, where he was head swimming coach, assistant dean of men and earned a master’s degree in education administration. As an assistant football coach, he coached his younger brother (Joe), who also became a conference MVP in football and went on to become an orthopedic surgeon. Joe’s fourth son – Dr. Shurmur’s cousin Rob — attended Albion and was captain of the football team. He went on to become a rheumatologist in Battle Creek, Mich.

Fritz Shurmur was defensive coach in 1997 when the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl.

Fritz Shurmur coached for 43 years, eventually earning a reputation as a defensive mastermind at the University of Wyoming for 12 years, then National Football League defense coaching positions with Detroit, New England, Los Angeles, and finally Green Bay. He wrote four books on coaching team defense and, as a professional, his defenses ranked at, or near the top of, the defensive rankings throughout his career.

In 1997, Fritz Shurmur crowned his two life passions — football and education – by claiming their highest honors. He earned a Super Bowl ring when his Green Bay Packers defeated the New England Patriots and Albion College presented him with an honorary doctor of pedagogy degree.

“The Shurmur name in Albion is prestigious and has brought honor to both the college and the town,” Dr. Ariza said. “I enjoyed updating Dr. Shurmur on the latest developments at the school. However, the town of Albion, is currently undergoing some social dislocation due to changes in the economy, and our college is expanding its outreach into the community to help with a number of these issues.”

Dr. Scott Shurmur’s father, Fritz.

The Fritz Shurmur Education Institute has a commitment to exploring the interconnected nature of knowledge and the resulting passion for learning that it generates and sustains. The intellectual skills of critical thinking, assimilation, integration and creative problem solving are core competencies of a liberally educated person and the hallmarks of effective teaching.

Fritz Shurmur, who died Aug. 30, 1999, always credited Albion College as the source of his excellence at bringing out the best in his football players.
“The thing about Albion that is so significant in my life is that we had some great teachers who took the time to teach us how to think, solve problems and deal with people,” Coach Shurmur once said.

“I found Dr. Ariza’s appearance on campus very much befitting both my dad and the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Dr. Shurmur said. “Albion always prided itself on a great demographic and cultural mix among its student population. I think the college was ahead of the game in terms of diversity. Albion recruited African American athletes long before a lot of division 1-A programs in the Midwest. I think a lot of the intellectual humanism that my dad carried throughout his life — a lot of the traits of Dr. King that Dr. Ariza discussed in her presentation — are also the character traits my dad lived in his own life.”