KARL PEARSON
Ninth of a Series...
One moment in time. True, it’s a song Whitney Houston, written and recorded for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
But Mike Adams knows exactly what that phrase means for a completely different reason. Because, on the night of Oct. 5, 1984, he lived out a moment that has become perhaps the single most discussed play in Ashtabula County football history.
For it was Adams, in his junior season as a running back-wide receiver at Jefferson High School, who was on the receiving end of the “Chubby Special” pass that powered a Falcon team decimated by the suspension of several key players to a victory over heavily favored archrival Pymatuning Valley and eventually to a Grand River Conference championship.
But, despite the highlight it was and has since evolved into, Adams said it was just one play in what was a career filled with highlights. In a way, it’s almost as if that one play has overshadowed the achievements of a highly productive three varsity seasons for the Falcons.
“That one play got a lot of hype,” the 1986 Jefferson graduate said. “That was probably the most exciting game I was involved in. It was exciting. I played in a lot of other great games, too.”
But then one looks at the sum of Adams’ career. In his three varsity seasons, he caught 93 passes covering 1,275 yards. Ten of those went for scores. In his junior and senior seasons, Adams earned first-team All-Ohio recognition. During his varsity career, all for coach Reid Lamport, the Falcons were 16-11-2.
Lamport, who now is an assistant football coach and the head softball coach at Poland Seminary, has always held Adams in high esteem.
“Mike was a tremendous receiver and just a great kid,” he said. “If you threw him the ball in his area, he caught it. We knew if he got single coverage, he was going to catch the ball.
“Mike was a great complement to our running game with guys like Dennis Mikolay and Mike Ritter. Out of the 30-some years I’ve been involved in coaching, I would rate him among the top two or three receivers I’ve worked with. Everything he had to give, we got out of him.”
Lamport believes that even as a youngster that Adams also possessed a unique perspective on football.
“Mike was a lot of fun and had fun with the game,” he said. “He was serious about the game, but he also understood where football stood in life.”
Scott Barber, now the highly respected baseball and boys golf coach at Jefferson, was Adams’ classmate and the guy with whom he connected so much over those three years.
“Mike had probably the best set of hands I’ve ever seen,” he said. “He caught everything. If you got the ball anywhere near him, he caught it. When you threw the ball to him, he made you look good.
“He was our go-to guy. I could throw it up and he’d go get the ball. He had good hands and he ran very good routes. If he was defended one-on-one, you knew the defense wasn’t going to get the ball. He’s definitely worthy of being a Hall of Famer.”
Matt Bradley, who came in on Lamport’s staff and eventually had a stint as Jefferson’s head coach, is also still involved in the coaching realm as a freshman coach at Madison. He developed a deep appreciation for Adams’ skills on
both sides of the ball, and his attitude.
“Mike was a very hard-working kid and had a ton of talent,” he said. “He was always a happy kid. He had a great ability to catch the ball, even behind his back or with one hand. His hands were just phenomenal. He was one of the best receivers I’ve ever worked with.
“He was a very good defender, too, as one of our outside linebackers, and our defense may have been better than our offense. He was a good return man, too. And I never saw Mike not be happy. He was a pretty special kid.”
Jim Richards was also a member of Lamport’s staff, but never actually worked with Adams as his position coach. Nonetheless, he appreciated Adams’ talents.
“Mike was a big contributor to our team,” he said. “He was a heckuva receiver with tremendous hands. With a couple of talented guys like Mike and Scott, we had to find ways to use them. He had good hands and good speed.”
Adams will be joining Lance Hammond, who got him the ball on the Chubby Special play, in the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame on Dec. 7. His name will once again be associated with great opponents like Pymatuning Valley’s John Bleshoy and Mike Bell and Grand Valley’s Mick Shoaf.
“It’s exciting,” the 41-year-old Adams said. “It’s a great honor. That was all a long time ago, but it’s still exciting.”
Actually, the son of Mike Adams of March Road and Jennifer Landis, a Warren resident, isn’t the only member of his family to have football skills imbedded deeply in his veins. His uncle, Jerry Bean, was a key component of the first football teams Grand Valley fielded in the early 1960s, playing with future Hall of Fame coach Jim Henson and his brother, Tom, now the head coach of the Mustangs.
Adams also has a sister, Candace McGovern, who still lives in Orwell.
Double duty
The family lived in Orwell when Mike was born and resided in the community until he was in the third grade.
“We lived where the Golden Dawn is now,” he said.
Eventually, they moved north to Roaming Shores, with Mike switching schools to Rock Creek Elementary. Even in those tender years, young Adams was getting his feet wet in football in a big way.
“When I first started out, I played football for the Rome Buckeyes in the Grand Valley,” he said. “When we moved to Roaming Shores, I played in the Jefferson league with the Rock Creek Colts.
“I still played for both teams. I’d usually play the full game with the Colts, then I’d leave and go down and play whatever was left of the game with the Buckeyes.”
The lessons imparted to him by his coaches from both teams stuck with Adams throughout his playing career.
“Dave Hartz was my coach with the Buckeyes and Chuck Eddy was my coach with the Colts,” he said. “They were both tough.
“Dave was a real fiery guy. We only played flag football in the Orwell league, but he’d tell you to tackle the other guy if you felt it was necessary.”
Lighten up
When it came to junior high football, Adams encountered coaches who loved the game just as much, but also tried to emphasize getting as much joy from the sport as they could.
“Jim Baker (a standout Jefferson player in his own right) and Gary Thaxton were my coaches in seventh and eighth grade,” he said. “They were real helpful because they were good role models who made football fun.”
Apparently, they saw the gifts the passing combination of Barber to Adams held.
“They worked with Scott and I a lot,” Adams said. “I think Jim’s the one that made it possible for us to go to a football camp at (the University of) Iowa.”
It all helped Adams and his teammates to build toward success for their high school careers. Apparently Adams made enough of an impression on Lamport and his staff to even get into some limited action as a freshman. That 1982 team went 5-5.
Varsity days
The gifts Adams and Barber displayed fit right into the kind of schemes Lamport ran at Jefferson. For that day and age, the Falcons threw the ball more than most teams, probably because Lamport had been a standout quarterback in college at Bowling Green.
“Reid was a really intelligent coach,” Adams said. “He was very methodical. He’d been a quarterback in college, so he spent a lot of time with us throwing passes.”
“During our sophomore year, Reid started using us full-time,” Barber said. “We ran a pretty free style of offense that we adapted to whoever we played. We always used a little trickery. We had a pretty good running attack. We ran the option and would roll out and throw the ball.
“The way we practiced, (Lamport) wanted us throwing the ball. We’d come out and start early throwing the ball and we’d stay late. He was always out there throwing the ball around with us.”
Adams remembers the approach of other members of the coaching staff well, too.
“Reid was real intense, but Matt Bradley was a maniac,” he said. “He was a motivator. It was like, ‘Go, go, go’ all the time.
“Jim Richards had the driest sense of humor. I remember we were messing around at practice one time and all of a sudden he said, ‘That’s five grass drills.’ Then he stood there with a sly little grin on his face.”
For someone who saw the humorous side of the game, Adams made an impression on Richards.
“It always seemed Mike really enjoyed the game,” he said. “I think the more success he gained, the more fun he had. He helped keep the team loose.”
One of the big things that Adams felt helped the Falcons progress was Lamport’s establishment of an organized weightlifting program in the days when emphasis on such matters was really just gaining a foothold.
“In my sophomore year, Reid started a lifting program,” he said. “I think that helped us a lot.”
That proved to be a huge asset for players like Adams, Barber, Mikolay, Ritter, guard Tim Sholtis, center Jeff Scribben, guard Jeff Zindash and safety Don Wilber.
But Adams truly came to appreciate all the trust Lamport and his staff put on him and his other young teammates. The coaches had to appreciate Adams’ versatility, playing not only split end and wingback, either cornerback or linebacker, return man and even the punter.
“I just loved that we threw the ball around more than the average team and they were throwing it to me,” he said.
Adams remembers one game from his sophomore season, one that had special meaning to him, especially in the 3-6-1 season they endured.
“I remember playing Grand Valley to a 0-0 tie,” he said. “That was one of the toughest hitting games I ever played in. I remember playing against (current Newbury head coach) Ray Harriman. He was quite a player.”
That championship season
There was a sense in the Falcon ranks going into the 1984 season that they might have a special team.
“We felt pretty good going into my junior year,” Adams said. “Every game was intense.”
It started well, too. The Falcons opened with a 14-0 victory over Edgewood for Jefferson’s second win in three years in the battle for the Edward P. Hoadley Cup for the first time since it had been initiated in 1952. Adams and Barber played a big part in that win, connecting on a 15-yard touchdown pass.
The next week, the Falcons lost a 6-0 decision at Conneaut in Jeff Whittaker’s first year as the Spartans coach. But Adams still had a fine game, catching five passes covering 52 yards.
Jefferson rebounded the next week with a 21-0 blanking of Harbor. Adams had five catches covering 77 yards, including a 21-yard touchdown connection with Barber.
The Falcons gained more momentum with a 35-0 shutout over West Middlesex, Pa. Adams caught five passes for 82 yards, including touchdowns of nine and 26 yards.
The Falcons hit a bit of a bump in the road the next week, settling for a scoreless tie against Mathews in their homecoming game. Adams did his job, though, catching four passes covering 33 yards.
Setting up the play
But disaster struck the team in the days following the tie. A party at the home of one of the players that involved alcohol led to the suspension of seven key players. Several other players turned in their uniforms as a result of that action, leaving a group of just 15 players to take on archrival PV, which also entered the game undefeated and regarded by pretty much everyone as the best team in Ashtabula County.
“I was shocked when we found out those guys were suspended,” Adams said.
Being the inventive sort he was, Lamport and his coaching staff dug into their bag of tricks and came up with a new strategy. It was dubbed the Chubby Special, tapping into the nickname the Jefferson staff had given Hammond when he arrived at the varsity level as a baby-faced freshman.
Hammond, who normally played tackle, was moved to tight end for the game. They put a play where Barber threw what amounted to a tight-end screen to Hammond, who was then either expected to throw the ball downfield to a receiver cutting into the middle of the field from the opposite sideline or run the ball if he felt the receiver wasn’t open.
Early trials of the play didn’t go well.
“It didn’t go very well in practice,” Adams said. “The second day we tried it, it went a little better.”
“We just couldn’t make it work in practice,” Lamport said.
But the play remained in the plan. The time to run it came in the second quarter with PV holding a 3-0 lead and the ball at the Falcon 48.
This time, the play worked like a charm, even though Hammond might have tipped off the play by heading to the Jefferson sideline throw his handpads at the bench.
The play had been set up previously with Adams basically jogging into the secondary, then going back to the huddle. This time, though, he kept going, breaking wide open.
The only thing Adams feared was not completing the play.
“I couldn’t believe how open I was,” he said. “It was a tough catch, only because the ball was in the air so long that I had so much time to think about it. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to feel really stupid if I drop this pass. Don’t drop the ball.’ I actually had tougher catches earlier in the game.”
Adams did his part, completing what became a once-in-a-lifetime experience and a 52-yard touchdown play.
“It was an amazing feeling,” he said. “I don’t think I’d ever felt as good about something. Everybody was so excited. It was a special moment.”
It was not Adams’ only catch of the game. He actually ended up with eight receptions covering 106 yards. Jefferson added an insurance score in the fourth quarter on Barber’s one-yard plunge to complete a shocking 14-3 upset.
Adams remembers the postgame celebration, too.
“It was great walking back to the school through the crowd after the game was over,” he said. “We were on top of the world. We had all really worked hard together.”
Finishing it up
The Falcons would not be denied after stunning their archrival. They blasted Fairport, 49-8, in the next game, with Adams catching four passes covering 68 yards, including a 14-yard touchdown reception.
A Saturday afternoon visit to Ledgemont was a bit of a trial, but the Falcons prevailed in a 16-0 decision, which clinched a share of the GRC championship, their first conference title since 1977.
In what had to be a highly meaningful moment for Adams, Jefferson clinched the outright GRC championship the next week with a 14-10 victory over visiting Grand Valley. Hammond caught a four-yard pass from Barber with just 35 seconds remaining for the win.
It didn’t stop there, though. The Falcons put a bow on their special season with a 22-17 victory over Champion. Adams played a big role in that with a key interception and a two-point conversion catch from Barber.
It resulted in Class AA All-Ohio honors, as well as first-team Star Beacon Ashtabula County and Coaches’ All-GRC selection for Adams.
A scary moment
Everything seemed to be in place for another terrific season in 1985 for Jefferson with Barber, Adams and Mikolay returning. But Adams endured a scary incident during the summer before the season while he was at home.
“I grabbed a skillsaw that wasn’t grounded, and it shocked me,” he said. “My mom saw it and came out and knocked the saw out of my hands. The charge hit the inside of my leg and burned it.”
Adams doesn’t believe it had an effect on his skills as a receiver, although Lamport and Bradley believed it may have.
“I think it affected his hands a little,” Lamport said.
Two obstacles got in the way of the Falcons defending their GRC title. One was the fact PV, now under the direction of first-year head coach Ken Parise, used the motivation of wiping out the memory of the Chubby Special play to cut through all opposition to the first 10-0 season in school history, a feat which has not been duplicated.
Adams also believes the Falcons just didn’t have the magic they had possessed the previous season. They finished 6-4.
“My senior year, we just didn’t click,” he said. “I still look back on my senior year as kind of disappointing. Things just didn’t work out.”
It wasn’t that they didn’t try. But this time, the Falcons lost their first two games, 13-7 to Edgewood and 26-3 to a Conneaut team that eventually went 10-0 for Whittaker and made the only playoff appearance in school history. Adams did have five catches against the Spartans.
They rebounded for a 14-12 victory over Harbor as Adams caught touchdown passes of 12 and 63 yards. He also had a 17-yard touchdown reception the following week in a 21-13 victory over Champion.
But, perhaps in a moment that was destined to happen, Adams wasn’t able to produce a second glorious catch, ironically against PV in a 21-7 loss. Lamport had put in another trick play for the occasion, this time a double-reverse pass. It appeared to be a work of art, too, with Adams breaking clear behind the Laker secondary.
“Only I dropped that pass,” Adams said with a rueful smile.
The Lakers were not to be denied, either, as the Bell brothers, Mike and Scott, running back Keith Whitlach and Bleshoy, did the rest. Scott Bell, who went on to become the Star Beacon Offensive Back of the Year, ran for 166 yards and two scores, while Whitlach had the other in handing the Falcons their fourth loss of the season.
But the Falcons did finish with a flourish, easily defeatintg Fairport and Ledgemont, outlasting Grand Valley, 14-13, and stomping Champion, 28-0. It completed another fine season for Adams, who finished with 37 catches covering 522 yards. It netted him first-team All-Ohio honors, as well as first-team Star Beacon Ashtabula County and Coaches’ All-GRC honors.
In retrospect, Adams is quite pleased with his career.
“My high school career was one of the proudest moments of my life,” he said. “My coaches had the biggest impact on my life.”
Adams’ career was not just a source of pride to him.
“My grandfather, Gerald Bean (who died in 2004), was always at my games,” he said. “He and my grandmother (Pearl, who still lives in Hartsgrove) were always there. I always appreciated that.”
After high school
Adams did have a brief run at college football.
“I went to Edinboro for a year,” he said. “But that part fell through. I was able to do something else I wanted to do. I’d always had a job and had money coming in, so I went to work.”
He got a job at the Mentor plant of Lincoln Electric. One of his co-workers there was Larry Sutyak, whose children, Bob and Karen, were standout athletes at Madison. Sutyak worked on the chain crew at Blue Streak football games for years.
“I worked there for 10 years,” Adams said. “We made all kinds of welding wire.”
But the opportunity came along to go into business for himself in 1998. He bought his first dump truck then and has gradually expanded what is now known as Adams Trucking and Excavation into a business that does construction jobs all over Northeast Ohio and employs 10 people and operates seven trucks.
He has become a family man over the years. He and his significant other, Dawn Johnston, have two daughters. Lindsey Adams, a sophomore at Geneva, has twice earned recognition as a Star Beacon Ashtabula County golfer and is as a member of the fine Eagle track team.
“She’s also does ballet and tap,” he said proudly.
Younger daughter Megan Adams is in the fifth grade at Austinburg Elementary and has also displayed athletic prowess.
“She plays for the Jaguars softball program, is in (Junior Olympic) volleyball and is even getting started in bitty basketball,” the 41-year-old Adams said with another proud smile.
The family also owns a handsome 16-acre plot in Austinburg, where it has resided for seven years.
“It’s been a blessing,” he said.
All the important matters of his life relate in some way to the lessons Adams learned on the gridiron.
“Hard work is the key to everything,” he said. “Nothing comes easy, but the rewards will come with it.
“I still have the same friends I did in football. The successes I’ve had are what the coaches taught us.”
There are other key lessons that have been carried forth, too, especially into his business relationships, but also into his family matters. They are truths he tries to pass on to his daughters.
“I found out how important communication is,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to be flexible. Teamwork always helps, too. I’ve tried to teach my daughters that.
“I’ve tried to teach them to be the best they can be.”
