FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (July 17, 2020) – His cell phone rang and with one glance at who was calling,
Davy Cummard immediately took it – just as he always does.
"It's a funny story; I was working as a pool guy and I was cleaning the dirtiest pool," Cummard said. "I get a call from Coach Burcar and whenever he calls me I stop what I'm doing and I take his call."
Little did Cummard know,
Shane Burcar had just been named Northern Arizona men's basketball's interim head coach. Cummard, on the other end of the phone, was back home in Mesa, Ariz. cleaning pools while figuring out where his basketball career would take him next, if anywhere.
As it turns out, Burcar was about to offer Cummard an opportunity to join him in Flagstaff – just the next stop in a lifelong journey shared between player and coach.
"He asked me how I was doing – I had just gotten married – and he told me he just got a new job and wanted me to come play for him," Cummard said. "He wanted me to be a part of this special time and this special program that he was going to build and I couldn't pass that up. Since it was Coach Burcar, it was different than if someone else had called. I respect Coach Burcar and I believe in him."
With his wife's blessing – Cummard and his wife, Cassandra, got married in March 2019 – the couple made the move north on I-17, much to Burcar's excitement.
"He came up the previous summer and I invited him to give it one more run, to come up here and help me try to help this team," Burcar said. "When someone like
Brooks DeBisschop and the rest of the guys who knew him the previous summer liked (Davy), I knew he had credibility. He was ecstatic and I was really happy that decided to come up here."
As synonymous as the Cummard family name and Mesa High School have been for decades, the same could be said about the Cummard family and Burcar.
Burcar's relationship with the Cummard family dates back to the summer of 2003 when Burcar was an assistant coach on at Mesa High School. Led by Arizona Big Schools Player of the Year Lee Cummard – Davy's uncle – the Jackrabbits went on to win the 2004 state championship.
After a brief one-year stint as head coach at Mesa's Westwood High School, Burcar returned to Mesa High prior to the 2006-07 season as the head coach. One of the first decisions he made was naming a young
Davy Cummard his team manager. For Cummard, whose entire family including both parents, uncles and aunts attended Mesa, it was a dream come true.
"Mesa High was my dream school," Cummard said. "I grew up going to the games. I bled purple and gold and I loved it. In the driveway, I pretended to be the Aaron Fullers and all of the Mesa High stars. When (Burcar) asked me to be part of the team, I was super excited to do that."
Cummard, born and raised in Mesa, helped out at practices and games and filled up water bottles, but nothing compared to traveling on the bus with the same players he idolized and celebrating in the locker room after a big win.
When asked about his favorite memories as a manager, one specific win in 2010 featuring one of Mesa's all-time greats stands out.
"I remember one particular game when we played at North," Cummard said about a 92-90 victory by No. 2 Mesa over No. 1 Phoenix North. "North had a player named Daniel Bejarano who played at Arizona and Colorado State. Daniel and Jahii Carson were the two best players in the state and we were the top two teams in the state. Jahii wins the game on a layup and the locker room after was special. I still remember being in there."
It wouldn't be long before Cummard, who was the team manager until the eighth grade, was celebrating victories himself as a player. As a three-year varsity player, Cummard helped the Jackrabbits rack up 69 victories, with the 69th and final celebration being the grandest of them all.
As the tournament's No. 2 seed, Mesa held off Sunnyslope High School, 51-48, to win the 2016 Division I State Championship in Cummard's final game as a Jackrabbit. The state championship win capped off a 26-4 senior season in which Cummard, like his great grandfather and father before him in football, could call himself a state champion at Mesa.
"It was everything I dreamed about," Cummard said. "To do it with the group of guys and teammates that I did it with, I don't have words to explain the feeling when it happened. It was so surreal. I remember the last play when Dane Maggi missed a shot and I didn't believe it was over. On the film you can see it took a couple of seconds for me to comprehend what just happened."
"Davy was a captain as a junior and senior, and his whole class was such a special group," Burcar added. "All of those kids at Mesa were special. If we didn't win a state championship…it was meant to be. To win two state championships with Lee as an assistant in 2004 and with Davy as a head coach in 2016, it creates a special bond."
Cummard's path since captaining the Jackrabbits to a state championship has seen its fair share of twist and turns.
Following graduation, Cummard spent five months in St. Louis, Mo. on an LDS mission before returning home without any plans of what to do next. Cummard eventually started working for his uncle as a welder before a familiar face extended a hand.
Burcar offered Cummard a position on his staff at Mesa during the 2016-17 season, which provided Cummard a glimpse at a different view of the sport he loved – and his former coach – from the bench. It strengthened his knowledge of the game, which proved to be helpful when his first of two opportunities to return to playing arose.
"After that school year, I was looking to play again and went on some visits to some local schools in Arizona," Cummard said. "Then a coach, Kevin O'Connor, who watched me my senior year texted me out of the blue. He had just got a head coaching job in Oklahoma at a school named Murray State. He gave me an opportunity to play and that experience was good. I learned a lot from Coach O'Connor about college basketball."
Under O'Connor, a former assistant at Arizona Western College, Cummard played 28 games at Murray State College in Tishomingo, Okla. – home of country music star Blake Shelton – during the 2017-18 season before once again returning home.
As Cummard was making his way back to Arizona, Burcar was leaving his post at Mesa following 12 years and a school record 277 victories after accepting a position on former Lumberjack head coach Jack Murphy's staff in April 2018. In pursuit of an opportunity at the Division I level, Cummard impressed during a summer tryout, but was ultimately left searching for the next step.
Fast forward to the phone call from Burcar the following summer, and the former Jackrabbit player-coach duo was set to reunite within the Flagstaff ponderosa pines. Although the setting was vastly different than the one they were both accustomed to 160 miles south in Mesa, the sport – and their relationship – was the same as it always was.
That's not to say there were any promises made to Cummard, whose circuitous route to NAU paled in comparison to his new teammates.
"When Davy came up here there were no guarantees; anyone who knows me knows I'm true to that," Burcar said. "I was so hard on him for the first two to three months because I wanted to make sure I wasn't favoring him because he played for me in high school. One of the players came up to me after a practice and said you don't have to be hard on Davy, we know you don't favor him. I took that as a compliment."
Cummard's presence on the team was immediately felt, and it didn't take long for him to earn the respect of his coaches and teammates. That respect came to fruition last December on an off-day between the Lumberjacks' games at UC Riverside and Pepperdine.
After the long road traveled and spending his first semester as a walk-on,
Cummard was awarded a Division I scholarship.
"It was awesome and I was totally surprised," Cummard said. "You see all these videos on SportsCenter and social media about guys going through the same thing and you never think that's going to happen to you, but I was lucky and blessed to have that happen to me. My teammates were so great and they were happy for me. I thought we were getting ready to pregame for our next game, but I got an early Christmas present."
"The great thing is when you saw the reaction, everyone knows he earned it," Burcar added.
Cummard wound up playing sparingly in eight games over his first season as a Lumberjack, but his contributions extend far beyond his minutes on the court.
"Davy is a very important piece and he was invaluable because he helped people along," Burcar said. "He's not here to get a pulse on the team for me. He's here to help us win basketball games. I thought he played great against Northern Colorado (on Feb. 18). He helped us win games when there were no lights on, during practices and film."
For Cummard, while his journey has taken him from an eight-year old manager to state champion, to Oklahoma and back and through side jobs to pass the time, two things have remained consistent – his family and Burcar – and often they have intersected, working in perfect harmony.
Burcar was there when Cummard asked Cassandra to senior prom in the middle of a practice in the Mesa High gym. When Burcar called to offer a spot at NAU, Cassandra supported Cummard's dream.
In March, Cummard and Cassandra welcomed their son, Jack, to the world. Being a first-time father, it will add another layer to the already many challenges that come with being a full-time Division I student-athlete.
"It has been a wild ride since I got married with so much change and new experiences," Cummard said. "My wife has been absolutely amazing and she's been perfect. Being a new mom, she's been great raising our son. I'm so thankful for her and I wouldn't be able to do this without her. Being a student-athlete is hard enough, but she makes life easier for me and I wish I could say the same. She's a lot tougher than me."
"My dad is my hero who I look up to the most, but Coach Burcar is definitely my biggest mentor in my life and he has been since I was little," Cummard went on to say. "He's been there for me. We've obviously had some good times together, but we've seen each other through it all. I've learned more about life than basketball being around him to be honest."
As for Burcar, the admiration is equally reciprocated going back the near two decades since his first interaction with the Cummard family.
"It starts at home," Burcar said. "Davy was raised by great parents, David and Sydney, and he couldn't do this without his wife, Cassandra. He has a great support system. What I really respect about their family is that it has nothing to do with playing time; there are no ulterior motives. It is true friendship."
Although the Lumberjacks are currently navigating the uncertain times, the pairing of Burcar and Cummard has already proven once to be championship-caliber.
With the program trending in the right direction under Burcar's leadership, could a Big Sky Championship be in this pair's future before it's all said and done?
"There are a lot of similarities," Cummard said of Mesa's state championship team and the current NAU roster. "Our team is full of great guys who are winners on and off the court. The coaching staff works hard. Everybody in this program just wants to win and we work hard every single day. When you get a group of those types of guys, good things happen. I'm excited to see what happens and I'm ready to get this show on the road."
