A Tribute to Rob Schumacher
A remembrance from a friend and colleague
Rob Schumacher on assignment for the Arizona Republic in 2007. This photograph and the other photographs (below) courtesy of Tom Story.
The late-night email from a former colleague was ominous — one you never want to receive.
Rob Schumacher was gone.
Rob and I were colleagues at the Arizona Republic for nearly twelve years. The words that come to mind first are quietly fierce — as a photographer, as a competitor, as a friend. He was a meticulous planner and student of every sport he covered, and he lived to make not a good frame, not a pretty good frame — the best frame.
We met briefly during the 1988 campaigns when Jesse Jackson's campaign came through Tempe. Rob was the Phoenix AP's number one stringer, and he wanted to be wherever the big story was — sports, news, whatever. He was hungry for all of it. And despite that drive, he went above and beyond helping me get my photographs back to my paper in Chicago, staying longer than he should have to help a stranger out.
When I interviewed at the Republic two years later, Rob had taken a job in the Scitex department — the film era's scanning operation. But the air-conditioned darkroom wasn't where his heart was; it was merely a foot in the door. He wanted to get back on the street.
Rob got out of that digital cave and back onto the street, and his drive, talent, and passion propelled him to better and better assignments because he delivered. Always.
The year Charles Barkley came to Phoenix — 1992 — Rob and I spent countless hours together: meals in the media room, games on the road, him on one end of the court and me on the other, both of us quietly competing for access to the strobe units mounted in the rafters. Whether he was shooting with the strobes or with the available light, Rob was dangerous. It took my very best to make a better image than he did, because he seemed to always be on.
One image of his from the 1993 playoffs stays with me. Dan Majerle hit a record eight three-pointers against the Seattle SuperSonics, and Rob had the presence of mind to shoot it horizontally — unusual for basketball, a vertical sport — capturing the shot, the players, and the scoreboard in a single frame. It ran six columns across the top of the sports section. That wire-service training of his taught him to pack as many storytelling elements into one image as possible. He nailed it, as he so often did during that run, making all of us — Rob, John Samora, and me — look good.
That Suns run to the 1993 Finals was the best stretch of my nearly twenty years in daily journalism, and a large part of what made it special was sharing it with Rob.
He was the one who called me in January 1997 to tell me our merged papers were shuttering the afternoon Phoenix Gazette. That tumultuous week — dozens of careers in the balance, management handling it with a shocking lack of empathy — we spent hours talking through the fallout, and afterwards instinctively looked out for each other against the new regime.
Through every upheaval — the closure, the paper’s eventual sale to Gannett — Rob kept climbing. He covered the Olympics. His Masters coverage became legendary. He was such a fixture at Augusta that I cannot think of that tournament without thinking of him, which made perfect sense, because Rob was a great golfer who loved the game deeply.
I will never forget the day Rob and Sheila brought their newborn Sara into the office. She was one of the most beautiful infants — no surprise, since Sheila and Rob were a stunning pair. He was completely at ease with that little baby in his arms. He was tenyears ahead of me as a father, and I believe it was his favorite role. They would add a second daughter, Rachel, a few years later.
After Nicki and I married in 2001, I soon left journalism and Arizona behind in early 2002. Rob stayed to fight the good fight. We'd talk about once a year — family, the state of the Republic, what he was hoping for next. He came to visit us in Ladera Ranch, bringing Rachel, then about eight, and she kept an eye on our firstborn Kate while the two dads laughed about the same old characters from work and talked about the days when newspapers were kind of a big deal.
The last time I spoke with Rob was earlier this year. Two former colleagues had taken buyouts and I called to ask if he was doing the same. He said he hadn't — he was planning to retire in a couple of years. I thought he sounded tired and frustrated, perhaps a bit betrayed by a newspaper that had once held him in such high regard and now seemed indifferent. Maybe that's what happens when you stay anywhere long enough, apathy setting in on both sides. But for someone who had given as much as Rob had — emotionally and physically — it must have cut deep.
My heart breaks for Sheila and the girls and his entire family.
I will be forever grateful for having Rob on my team, and for our friendship during those years when we were both trying to find our place in a competitive industry — competing fiercely and watching out for each other at the same time. I will miss his stoic, quiet resolve. And I am sad that distance came between us after we left Arizona.
Thank you, Rob, for the years you pushed me to be a better photographer — and for showing me, by example, that being a husband and a father is the assignment that matters most.
