AN OUTSTANDING LEGACY: Theresa Adams to be honored at Glynn Academy
Dec. 2—Coach Theresa Adams to be honored at Glynn Academy
Theresa Adams would be worthy of all the accolades and acclaim solely based upon her coaching resumé. The same could be said for her impact on the sport of women's basketball.
Include her humanitarian efforts, and it's easy to see why the former Glynn Academy coach is set to receive one of the highest honors in the profession. The basketball court at The Glass Palace will be dedicated to Adams at a ceremony 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
As head coach of the Glynn Academy girls basketball team for 35 years, Adams won 637 games, eight region championships, 19 sub-region titles, and embarked on two runs to the Final Four among her numerous state playoff appearances. She produced multiple local and regional Players of the Year, and all-state and all-region selections.
But when Adams first began her career at Glynn Academy as a health and physical education teacher in 1977, the school didn't even have a girls basketball program. It had been dormant since 1963.
That was hardly an obstacle for Adams, who had been a part of a group of women to petition Savannah State College to start the school's women's basketball program.
With past experience under her belt as a player, Adams reignited the Glynn Academy girls basketball program in her second year at the school, becoming the first Black female coach in GA history.
"It was exciting," said Sheree Lattany-Gardner, a member of some of Adams' first teams at Glynn Academy. "At the time, we were used to the boys playing basketball. We weren't used to it. We played at the rec sometimes, and she just kind of introduced it to us, and she just kept pushing it."
It wouldn't be long until the fledging program developed a reputation as one of the toughest, most competitive teams in the state under Adams as she established a standard of success at the school.
Lattany-Gardner recalls that Adams wouldn't even let the team touch a basketball over the first month of practices as they furiously worked on their conditioning and drilled defensive principles. Players were thrilled when they got the chance to dribble a ball.
And it worked.
"They kept saying southeast Georgia couldn't compete with northern Georgia," Lattany-Gardner said. "She took a group of girls up to Atlanta for some tournaments, and we wore them out.
"But she did it with her own money and her own very limited resources. She would just take us back and forth up there."
Sacrifice for the greater good has been a resounding theme in Adams' life.
In addition to girls basketball, Adams had various stints coaching cheerleading, cross country, track and field, and tennis. She ensured there would be no barriers preventing athletes from reaching their highest potential.
"She really got the inner-city girls and kids that were in the area, and just got us exposed to what sports were like — boys and girls. She was instrumental," Lattany-Gardner said. "I know at the time, when I played for her, I ran track also, and she would pick us up in her car with her four little kids, she would go from the island, to the bottom of Dixville, all the way to the north side, and all in-between, dropping us off, making sure we get back and forth to practice and stuff."
During a time when there was minimal representation for female athletes, Adams was a shining beacon.
"It built our self-esteem up, it built our confidence up," Lattany-Gardner said. "But we really did, we worked really, really hard. One thing about it, you're going to run those bleachers, you're going to run 100 laps, you will run.
"There wasn't going to be any of that acting like, 'Hey, because we're girls, we don't need to do this.' No. She made us work very hard."
But Adams' impact wasn't limited to gender inequality. Even racial tensions in the 70s were entirely absent in Adams' presence.
"I watched her break the racial barriers," Lattany-Gardner said. "She had girls from the island who played tennis, we had two or three of them who played basketball, and she made them be a part. She allowed them to be comfortable with us, as well as the cheerleaders.
"She was able to break that racial distress that was going on — there was a lot of distress at the time. But we didn't feel it. We just didn't feel it. We knew it was around us, but when we came to the campus, when we dealt with Ms. Adams, we didn't do certain things. We didn't say certain things. She didn't allow that type of division."
Adams truly wanted the best for anyone and everyone in Glynn County, whether they wore red and white or blue and gold.
Although Adams had an illustrious career at Glynn Academy, she was never opposed to offering a helping hand to athletes from the school across town.
"Personally, she helped me in many ways from being able to just talk about life lessons, and being able to help me to add to my own personal basketball game as a player; she always was supportive, except when we played each other as a player," Brunswick High girls head coach, and alumnus, Maria Mangram said with a laugh. "But in the summertime she always welcomed me with open arms. She just wanted the good from everybody, and she definitely make players want to run through a wall for her.
"She's just awesome. She's a phenomenal woman. I hope I can stay in as long as she did."
The daughter of Brunswick High legend John Willis, Mangram is intimately familiar with what a revolutionary coach looks like. She has known Adams nearly her entire life and watched as the Glynn Academy mainstay served as mother, grandmother and aunt to everyone in the county.
Both of the town's current girls basketball coaches are just a few in the long line of lives touched by Adams.
"I can't say enough about how much she helped me personally grow as a player, and as a coach," Mangram said. "Even when I first started coaching, she was still coaching at Glynn Academy, and she and I had a great relationship. It was always a hug before every time we played, a hug afterward. She had so much love.
"Of course, she wants to win just like anybody else, but she was just so supportive. I can't say that enough. Just the love she has for girls and women's basketball, it was an honor to even be able to be around her."
Glynn Academy girls basketball coach, and another former player, Myosha Leeper echoed the sentiment: "There are not enough words that I can use to describe my coach, Theresa Adams, who increased my love for the game of basketball.
"She has had an incredible capacity to empathize with her players and understand their true motivation. She did all of that and more while balancing her job, coaching multiple teams, as well as her active participation as a member of Payne Chapel Methodist Church."
And balance it she did.
In addition to her exploits on the basketball court, Adams won 11 region titles as the girls track and field coach, sending competitors to state every season but one in her 35-year career with 24 athletes qualifying for medal presentations.
As the girls cross country coach, Adams earned 24 more region titles. She even won one in a five-year run as the boys cross country coach. In 23 years as the Glynn Academy cheer coach, Adams' teams were awarded the Spirit Stick — the highest summer camp honor in the sport — 23 times.
Once, Adams coached her teams to region championships in girls cross country, girls basketball and girls track and field all in the same year.
Adams had claimed 45 total region champions in 35 years as a coach when she retired in 2011, earning a spot in the 2012 Glynn County Sports Hall of Fame class.
Still, there had to be more done to honor the legacy Adams has created. So when the opportunity arose to enshrine the influential force on the court where it all began, there was little hesitation.
"We heard they were doing floor over, and a couple of ladies got together and said, 'We need to have Ms. Adams' name on that floor,'" Lattany-Gardner said. "So she asked a couple of us to come to the board of education while they were voting. They voted on it and they unanimously voted that her name go on it — but we had to pay for it.
"But we paid for it. We raised the money because we're hard workers."
Now, the court at The Glass Palace is emblazoned with its new name "Coach Theresa Adams Court" in a showing of love that cost more than $13,000.
But after all the love, support and assistance Adams has given to the community for nearly half a century, there was no shortage of donors who wanted to give back to the woman who helped turn them into the people they are today.
"The people who did participate were the people that played for her and that loved her, and just wanted to see her name there," Lattany-Gardner said. "When we see her name there, it's our name. That's us."
