Jody Adams - Women's Basketball Coach - Murray State University Athletics

Jody Adams

Title:
Head Coach

“It’s important to surround yourself with great people, because it is those people that will help determine the success in your life’s journey.”

Murray State first-year head coach Jody Adams treasures that quote given to her by Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt. While it may be good advice for someone becoming a head coach or starting in any leadership position, Adams has already seen the proof of this statement.

Adams comes to Murray State with perhaps the best pedigree of any coach in the history of the university, having been surrounded by the best in the business.

That pedigree began in high school, at Bradley Central High School in Cleveland, Tenn.

“I played for Jim Smiddy, the winningest coach in the nation at the high school level,” Adams said. “He was ahead of his time by bringing guys in to practice to play against.
“Coach Smiddy was a competitor. Everything with him was hard-nosed. You had to be tough to play for him.”

Adams began playing basketball in third grade.

“What drew me to basketball was being naturally competitive,” she said. “I enjoyed the ‘team’ part of it. It was a sport that you had to work with other people to be successful. I also like the challenge physically and mentally.”

Adams’ career in basketball was almost halted before it started. During a camp run by Summitt, Adams suffered an injury that threatened her basketball future.

“I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) at Pat Summitt’s camp,” Adams said. “She was actually watching me when I tore my ACL and carried me off the court.

“The doctor in Knoxville told me I’d never play basketball again after the injury, and of course, we weren’t satisfied with that, so we went to get another opinion and went to Nashville, and we saw Dr. Lipscomb. An interesting fact was that Dr. Lipscomb had done surgery on Pat before.

“Pat called me later that summer to see how my surgery went,” Adams said. “As I got better and responded from the surgery, when I began to play my sophomore year, Pat began to watch me and recruit me more heavily, and when my junior year came, she offered me a scholarship.”

Sure enough, Adams found herself playing for another coach who was the most successful at her level. Summitt has the most wins of any collegiate basketball head coach — men’s or women’s — boasting a record of 947-180 entering the 2007-08 season.

At UT, Adams was the starting point guard for the 1991 NCAA champion team and the 1990 and ’93 Southeastern Conference regular-season champion and 1992 SEC Tournament champion teams.

“The men’s and women’s champions went to the White House to meet with the President (following the 1991 national championship), and he had dedicated a court to us,” Adams said. “I think it was off to the left side of the White House. It was a concrete court with a metal plate saying, ‘Presented in honor of the national champion Tennessee Lady Vols and the Duke Blue Devils.’

“The five starters from each team got to have a shootout. Grant Hill and I won it for our teams. Later on, we met in the Oval Office and discussed academics. It was a pretty amazing day. That was an incredible experience.

In large part due to their success in those years, Adams and the Lady Vols program won the College Team Decade Award at the 2000 ESPY Awards.

She was a 1992-93 Pre-Season All-American, earning the Lady Vol Torch Award for Academic Excellence as well as the Lady Vol Coach’s Award that season.

Adams earned All-SEC Academic Team honors in 1991 and 1992, being named to the All-Mideast Regional Tournament Team in 1991.

In her freshman season (1989-90), she earned the UT Sixth Player Award and took part in international play, playing on the U.S. Junior National Team and the South U.S. Festival Team.

“Winning a national championship with only had 11 players and beating Virginia in overtime is a feeling I can recall today,” Adams said. “I love to pass those memories on to those I coach. I want my team to win championships and to have the same feelings.”

Following graduation, Adams got her first taste of life on the bench, serving as a student assistant coach for Summitt before earning her degree at Tennessee in 1994.

In 1994, Adams left the nest of east Tennessee and was hired by another successful SEC coach, Joe Ciampi of Auburn, who finished his career with a record of 607-213. At Auburn, Adams was the restricted earnings coach for a year before landing her first full-time assistant position in the 1995-96 season.

Adams’ assistant coaching career continued at Wake Forest (1996-97) and Minnesota (1997-2000) — where she coordinated one of the nation’s top five recruiting classes — until she found a position with Dana Eikenberg at Missouri-Kansas City.

At UMKC, Adams began as an assistant before being promoted to associate head coach in 2001, holding that position for three seasons.

In 2003, Adams earned national recognition when she was named the AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year.

In 2004, when Eikenberg took the position she now holds at Southern Illinois, she brought Adams with her as her associate head coach.

The Salukis began slowly, but like Murray State, had an incredible turnaround season last year, winning the Missouri Valley Conference title and being listed as the sixth-best turnaround in Division I with an improvement of nine wins. (Murray State was seventh at an 8.5-win turnaround.)

“In coaching, you’re a teacher every day,” Adams said. “Everybody has their own way to teach. I try to do mine with motivation and positive reinforcement, and challenge the individual. I’m not one to settle. There’s always an extra push you have in your body, and that’s what I love to see. I love to see our players give that extra push when they don’t think they can and be rewarded for it in the end. The other reward is off the court, to see them grow, mature and blossom, and become their own individual. It’s great hearing from my former athletes. They have meant so much to my life.”

Adams’ coaching methods are noted by her former players, like current Murray State assistant coach Carlai Moore, who played under Adams at UMKC and Southern Illinois.
“Jody is very personable, both on and off the court,” Moore said. “She wants to get the best out of you. She’s very intense; she pushes you to your potential.

“Off the court, she’s great for instilling leadership in young women. Jody has been taught by the best and has a lot of experience in coaching, especially at the mid-major level. Those tools become very beneficial for her when she is coaching these young women. To play for someone who has been taught by Pat Summitt is great, but to play for someone who knows the game, who cares and wants nothing more than to see you succeed — now, that’s something special.“

Looking back at her influences, Adams sees the apparent boost of having been affiliated with such successful coaches, but acknowledges that others have influenced her as well.

“Those kinds of things have stuck with me, but my real influence comes from the home and family,” she said. “Mom brings the patience, loving, caring side to things, and Dad brings the competitive, challenging, ‘don’t quit’ mentality. They’re both very passionate, but very different people. My grandparents are also very influential people.

“I think that everything that I do started at home. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive family. Their support is unlimited. I think that the pure fact that they allowed me to live my dream, and my passion to work with young women at the college level, is pretty amazing.
“I grew up learning right from wrong and a good choice from a bad choice,” she said. “My favorite is what Pat has always said to me: Surround yourself with great people, and your journey in life is going to be successful.

“Coach Smiddy added to that. Pat Summitt added to that. (UT assistant coach) Holly Warlick added to that. Those are probably the most influential people in my career.”

Adams has family of her own, in a way, a young boxer named Maxx. Maxx is not a pugilist. Maxx is a dog.

“It is actually Sir TJ Maxxwell,” Adams said. “He is named after my favorite shopping place, which is TJ Maxx. He’s 1-1/2 years old, and he was the biggest guy of the batch: big feet, clumsy, and just one of the most loving, caring guys.

“I think dogs take your focus off of yourself. They teach you to give, to love unconditionally. Trust me: Who could turn down hugs and kisses when you walk through the door?

“I think it’s important that you have a life and balance to have longevity in this profession,” she said. “I think that keeps you mentally fresh and loving what you do.”

As a champion player and a champion coach, Adams has seen several aspects of coaching.

“I think the caring side of being a coach comes easily for me,” she said. “I think I’m naturally a giver. When we step on the court, then, we’re going to compete. We’re going to get after it. You will see energy and passion in what we do as a team. But, when we walk back off the court, the players as individuals, I’m going to love them and care for them and let them know they are appreciated.

“That’s my job, to lead in a different way. I lead them as individuals, but when we are a team, I lead them as a unit. I have to make decisions for everybody, what’s best for everybody.

“I believe that winning is hard,” she said. “Losing is easy. Telling the truth is hard. Lying is easy. Staying committed is hard. Quitting is easy. If you ever figure that out, and you do it the hard way, the tough way, then you’ve got a chance to be a champion.”

The path to success is rarely clear for any first-year head coach, but with the history that Jody Adams has, having been surrounded by the best in the business, success cannot be too far behind.