John Shulman, husband and father first, basketball coach second.
Shulman is the youngest of 7 kids from Johnson City, Tennessee. He lost both parents at 25 years old, so he’s very close with his family.
“I love my family, and our family is very close,” Shulman said.
His oldest son, Max, is his assistant coach and his youngest, J.C. plays on the UCA basketball team. His middle son, Tanner, works as a graduate assistant at James Madison University. This year on June 22, Shulman and his wife will be married 30 years.
“It’s a blessing to be around them every day,” Shulman said. “And some days are hard and some days are great. I try not to take it for granted.”
He said that he hopes his tombstone will read ‘Family over Everything’ someday.
Shulman had never been to Arkansas before he came to coach at UCA. He made a wrong turn one time in Memphis and came right back to Tennessee, he said.
“When I said that we were looking at Central Arkansas, my wife didn’t blink. She didn’t flinch. So now we live in Conway, Arkansas,” Shulman said. “That’s what unconditional love and unconditional family is all about.”
In third grade he watched a Tennessee versus Kentucky game and thought ‘This is electric.’
In eighth grade, he was a good player but not a great player, he said. But he loved it.
“I knew I wanted to coach in college, and I didn’t have a great pedigree because I wasn’t a great player and so I knew I was going to have to outwork and outheart everybody,” he said.
Shulman started coaching junior varsity when he was 19 years old.
“It was the greatest thing in the world,” he said. “And 39 years later, I’m still coaching.”
He was the head coach at Chattanooga and was in the NCAA tournament twice.
“I was a cool guy, but I was selfish,” he said. “It was not about the players, it was about me. And that’s why it has been a blessing that I was able to reinvent myself.”
About seven years ago, he coached at University of Alabama – Huntsville.
“It’s been so much fun since that moment. It wasn’t fun before that moment,” Shulman said. “I was so driven, till I wanted to coach basketball, I was trying to climb up that ladder and what was next.”
Living in the moment can help a lot of things, he said.
“We try to live in the moment and try to impact kids,” Shulman said. “It always goes back to relationships and these relationships that we built this year are everlasting. And that’s where it’s special.”
While lots of people have regular 9-to-5 jobs, Shulman stays up till 2 a.m. to watch film with his players, he said.
“But that’s what we love to do,” he said. “Why would you put your life in the hands of 18-22 year old kids? Which sounds stupid and ridiculous, but it’s also the most meaningful thing that I’ve ever done in my life. Trying to build a basketball program and impact kids, it’s pretty important.”
The journey is a lot better than the destination, he said. Coaching is not a job, it’s a calling.
“It’s about the ups and downs,” Shulman said. “This is the highest of highs, winning 11 in a row, and getting beat at the buzzer in the ASUN championship game is crushing. But it’s crushing because we put so much into it.”
“We have a motto here: We risk it all. And if you don’t risk it all, you never experience great things, but there is a chance that you’re gonna be heartbroken, and that’s okay.”
Friendly people are what brought Shulman to UCA, he said.
“A ‘normal-guy’ president, he goes to eat in the cafe and hang out with students. A president who is a laid-back guy, just like everybody else. A campus that is thriving. A community that is proud of UCA,” Shulman said.
When Shulman and his family moved into their neighborhood, after day two, probably 11 people had come to their door to give them cookies or bread or other goodies, he said.
“And only one of them knew I was a basketball coach. They didn’t care. We were just new neighbors coming in,” Shulman said. “And that’s what fits me and my wife and my family.”
Shulman loves the people in the community.
“People are nice, that’s what we’re looking for,” he said. “We were looking for a friendly place that actually liked us as neighbors, not just liked us when we won games.”
Shulman was most intrigued by the fact that the UCA men’s basketball team had had a winning season since switching to Division 1 in 2006.
“That excited me. A lot of people think I’m crazy, but that excited me,” he said. “At Chattanooga, if you didn’t go to the NCAA tournament, they’re gonna fire you. That’s a lot of pressure. At Huntsville, we went to five NCAA tournaments in five years, division two — that’s a lot of pressure.”
“Out here, if we won 10 games, they were going to think that we did a great job. Building is a lot more fun than maintaining.”
Last season, Shulman’s first season at UCA saw a lot of players get hurt and at one point, the top six players were out.
“We went 9-24, and I was still proud of what we did,” he said. “We laid the foundation culture-wise for what we did this past year.”
Shulman told President Houston Davis and Director of Athletics Matt Whiting that they were going to turn the program around and win championships and cut down nets, according to Shulman.
“And we come out here and win nine games. I felt like I let a lot of people down,” he said.
Senior guard Cam Hunter came back for the 2025-2026 season and it was really important to get him back to stabilize the program, Shulman said.
“What I told Cam and Matt Whiting is ‘We want to go to the NCAA tournament’,” Shulman said. “I firmly believed it, and Cam believed it. And the kids started believing it.”
The more that the team won, the more they believed, he said.
“‘Why not us?’ And all of the sudden, an impromptu net cutting deal went down in [Farris], it was us.”
This year, the UCA Men’s Basketball team was tied for the regular season conference title.
“We got the championship rings and cut down the net but we got to do it next year,” he said.
Shulman said that we live in America, everybody has an opportunity to do what they want to do.
“Are you willing to work? Are you willing to dream? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to risk it all?” he said. “But if you do that, and you don’t get the job, you’re going to be devastated. So most people don’t, and play it safe.”
He works to create a culture for the team, not just a season of good players.
“A lot of people just want talent. I want talent for sure, but I want character. I want a work ethic,” Shulman said. “I think talent is the most overrated thing in the world. I think work ethic trumps it every single time.”
Shulman tries to recruit Arkansas kids because they are very prideful of their state, he said. More of the community started coming out to games this season, he said.
“They don’t want a new team every year,” he said. “They want to see these kids grow.”
Coach Shulman recently signed a contract extension to stay head coach of UCA’s men’s basketball team. His original contract was for four years, ending in 2028; now it has extended to end in 2030.
“Coaches win games, administrations win championships,” Shulman said. “Because if you don’t have the backing of your administration, you can only go so far. But we do and we’re very appreciative of them.”
