The captain of the Georgetown baseball team while an undergraduate, John Shugrue saw action over the course of four basketball seasons in the early 1910's, with a 7.0 points average in his senior season.

Shugrue earned three degrees from Georgetown from 1915 to 1919, taught in the medical school, and was a prominent brain surgeon at the Mayo Clinic and Walter Reed Hospital. At his death in 1946, the New York Times noted that he invented a "time saving drill" to treat cranial injuries.