Coach Mark Adams' time at Wayland Baptist among his most fulfilling years

(Mark Adams will be inducted into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor along with Kirby Dunn, Daniel Franklin, Serenity King, Kristina Edwards Lee, Joe Lombard, Dr. Claude Lusk, Don Christa & Caren Smith, and Jodie Young during ceremonies at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 23 in the Laney Center. Ray Murphree will be awarded the Harley Redin Coach's Award. A continental breakfast begins at 8:30. The public is invited).

Mark Adams has been a men's basketball head coach at every collegiate level, from junior college to NCAA Division I. As a head coach taking over losing programs at every stop along the way, his teams won 70 percent of the time, claimed a national championship and finished as runner-up for a national title, and Adams earned 15 coach of the year awards. Through more than three decades of coaching, Adams – who also dabbled for a time in professional hockey – said his time at Wayland Baptist University proved to be the most fulfilling years of his career.
 
"I had an incredible coaching experience during my time at Wayland Baptist. We had the resources available to have great success. Reflecting back, I had an extraordinary group of high-character individuals that loved the game and hated to lose." 
 
A native of Brownfield, Adams grew up loving and excelling in sports. His father, Tom, attended Texas Tech on a football scholarship before transferring to Hardin-Simmons where he is a member of the school's Athletic Hall of Fame for achievements in both football and boxing. A member of the 1949 International Boxing Team, Tom Adams lost only eight boxing matches in over 100 career decisions and is the only man ever to win five consecutive Golden Gloves championships.
 
Some of Tom Adams' boxing talent rubbed off on Mark, who earned regional Golden Gloves titles in Lubbock and Amarillo as a 156-pound light-middleweight.
 
"My father was a tremendous influence in my life as a Christian and as a mentor in sports. Still today, I use many of his sayings with our Texas Tech team," Mark said of his dad, a retired farmer who "made sure his kids (Mark has a twin brother, Matt) knew how to work. We hoed a lot of cotton and worked long hours making sure the irrigation systems were watering the crops." 
 
After graduating high school in 1974, Mark earned a basketball scholarship at South Plains College. He later received his bachelor's degree at Texas Tech, where he also was influenced with some invaluable coaching knowledge from legendary Tech basketball coach Gerald Myers.
 
"I was a student assistant with Coach Myers, who let me be a part of practices and games. It was priceless."
 
Adams started his coaching career at Clarendon College and quickly realized success, transforming a program that had won just 18 games the previous three seasons to one that posted 46 victories in his two seasons there. His team claimed the highest finish in conference and regional in school history, and he is Clarendon's winningest coach in the past 60 years.
 
He got the call to come to Wayland and had similar success with the Pioneers, who struggled much of the 1960s and '70s. Taking over a program that posted 13 wins the year before his arrival, Adams' first squad finished 20-12 and advanced to the NAIA District 8 semifinals. But it was Adams' second team, in 1984-85, that brought Wayland men's basketball into a whole new light.
 
"It turned out to be a very special season," Adams said. 
 
The season ended with Wayland playing for the NAIA national championship in Kansas City, yet started innocently enough as the Pioneers owned a 19-9 record. The first two of those losses were back-to-back, one-point games to Chaminade and Hawaii Pacific on a memorial trip to Honolulu.
 
Wayland went on to reel off 11 consecutive victories, including a 71-66 win over rival and top-ranked Midwestern State and veteran coach Gerald Stockton in Wichita Falls in what was called the "biggest Wayland win ever." The Pioneers hit 14 of their last 15 free throws to secure the four-point victory, WBU's first-ever in D.L. Ligon Coliseum.
 
"Being able to cut the down the nets at Midwestern University, which earned us the right to go to the national tournament, was one of my fondest coaching memories," Adams said. (A photo in the Traveler shows player Tim Thomas standing on top of the rim in celebration.) 
 
It had been 28 years since Wayland last competed at nationals, and the Pioneers had never won a game in three appearances at Kansas City's Kemper Arena. But Adams and his team changed that as they promptly defeated Mesa College (78-70), Hillsdale College (90-63), College of Charleston (73-68) and, in the semifinals, Marycrest by a slim 70-69 margin.
 
That set up a showdown with defending national champion Fort Hays State, Kan., for the national title. Wayland trailed most of the game before a tip by Dean Jackson at the buzzer forced overtime. The next buzzer-beater, however, didn't go the Pioneers' way.
 
"The (Fort Hayes State) coach's son (Ron Morse) hit a running jump shot from right inside the top of the key to win the game," Adams recalled. "It seemed like it rolled around for an eternity before the ball fell in. I still hurt to this day for our players, even though that team will go down in history as one of the best ever."
 
Wayland finished that season with a 30-10 record, having broken 13 team and three individual school records. The record for most wins in a season still stands, having been matched four years later by Adams' assistant Rick Cooper's second team at Wayland. Carlon Davis and Tim Thomas, two of seven seniors on the 1984-85 roster, were named honorable mention NAIA All-American.
 
The Pioneers were rewarded for their runner-up finish with a trip to Mexico the following summer. They went undefeated during the trip, winning all 10 of their games. 
 
"We had great talent, exceptional depth and unbelievable leadership from our seniors," Adams said.
 
Adams said he was able to bring two great players in Thomas and Pinkney from Clarendon to Plainview. He called the 6-foot-10 Davis "the most improved player on the team who broke all the records in blocked shots." Richard Miller was maybe the best ball handler Adams ever coached, and Michael Parks, who was a sophomore that year, was a pure 3-point shooter.
 
"We had a well-balanced team. We were very skilled, athletic and had size with Davis and (Brian) Bluhm at 6-foot-10."
 
Adams also recognized his assistant coach, Cooper, who later succeeded him as head coach at Wayland (and later at West Texas A&M) and today serves as Wayland's director of athletics. "I was blessed to have Rick as my assistant coach. He made a huge impact on that team, and to this day I consider him one of my closest friends," Adams said.
 
The Pioneers also won district the next two years under Adams and made two more trips to the NAIA National Tournament.
 
With a record at WBU of 100-39 (his .719 winning percentage was the highest in school history), Adams was lured to West Texas State University in nearby Canyon where he spent five successful seasons, winning two Lone Star Conference titles and making three NCAA Division II National Tournament appearances. His .730 winning percentage, from a 108-40 record, remains the highest in school history since 1944.
 
From there Adams went to Division I University of Texas Pan-American in Edinburg, once again taking over a losing program and managing a winning record in his second season. After five years Adams got out of coaching to become owner and general manager of the Amarillo Rattlers pro hockey team, which he later moved to Lubbock where they were known as the Cotton Kings.
 
But coaching called Adams back to the basketball court, and in 2004 he became head coach at Howard College in Big Spring.
 
"I really missed coaching," said Adams, who picked up right where he left off by guiding Howard to a 35-2 record in 2006. Four years later the Hawks went 33-2 and won the National Junior College Athletic Association national title, and Adams was named NJCAA National Coach of the Year. Adams' Howard College teams were nationally ranked seven of his nine seasons and made the national tournament for the first time in 35 years.
 
After a trip to the Elite Eight in 2013, Adams returned to Texas Tech as director of basketball operations before heading to the University of Arkansas-Little Rock as an assistant coach under Chris Beard. In their only season in Little Rock, Beard and Adams guided the Trojans, who boasted the top-ranked defense in the nation, to the best record in school history (30-5), the Sun Belt Conference regular-season and tournament championships, and a double-overtime upset win of 12^th-ranked Purdue in the second round of the NCAA National Tournament.
 
When Beard was named Texas Tech's head coach, Adams joined him back in Lubbock where the Red Raiders finished this past season with an 18-14 record, including three wins over Top 25 opponents.
 
In his 25 years as a head coach, taking over five different losing programs, Adams amassed a 554-244 career record (70%) and held the best coaching record at four schools. He guided teams to 14 postseason appearances and reached the national tournament at every school he coached a total of eight times.
 
In addition to quickly turning around losing programs, Adams' teams were known for their strong playoff performances, with a mark of 60-21 (.740).
 
Adams has been married to wife Jennifer for 28 years. They have two children, Abbie and Luke.
 
"Wayland Baptist is a special place and I am truly blessed to have had the opportunity to serve as their coach."