Article #3 - JD

Below is the third article in the Washington County Enterprise Leader about our family. This one focuses on JD. They also included a graphic of our family tree. Pretty neat. 

No Child Left Behind

ROAD TO PLAYOFF GAME IS TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

By Mark Humphrey, ENTERPRISE-LEADER

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

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FARMINGTON — When the bus carrying the Cardinal football team rolled past Searcy on Nov. 9 en route to their first-round state playoff game at Newport, it was like a trip down memory lane for head coach Mike Adams and his wife, Robin.

Loss of father at tender age

Oldest son, Jon David Adams, was born at Searcy and the lad was six months old when his father, David Baker, Robin’s first husband, died from a heart attack on August 4, 1988, in what was later determined by autopsy to be caused by Marfan Syndrome.

According to Stanford University Center website, Marfan syndrome is a connective tissue disorder, in which the protein necessary for strengthening the connective tissue, fibrillin 1, does not work properly, aff ecting the growth and development of the body.

According to Stanford, approximately one in every 5,000 people worldwide is diagnosed with Marfan syndrome and often develop enlarged aortic vessels or thoracic aortic aneurysms. Modern treatment can help them avoid risk of death from dissection or tearing of the aorta.

Football sustains broken family

Fifteen months later on Oct. 13, 1989, an automobile accident at Charleston claimed the life of Diane Adams, leaving her husband, Mike, then head coach of the Charleston football team, to raise the couple’s two children, Meredith, then threeand-a-half years old, and Spencer, 18 months.

After the tragedy, football sustained the Adamsfamily, not only providing income from Mike Adams’ job but also giving Mike a sense of structure, something he could focus on when his world had been shattered.

“The accident occurred on a Friday. I was out of school for a week,” Mike Adams said. “I went back to practice on a Wednesday after her funeral. I had to have something to hold onto, that’s what I held onto.”

Union of families

In 1992, Mike and Robin married uniting their families. Jon David and Spencer grew up as brothers and each wound up attending Harding University at Searcy with Spencer getting a football scholarship.

Robin Adams drove to the Nov. 9 playoff game with Jana Harper, wife of Farmington defensive coordinator, Jay Harper;

and Spencer’s fi ancé’, Lyndsey Kepesky. They drove into Searcy and Robin took them by the house where she had lived with her fi rst husband, David, and Jon David.

They also drove around the campus of Harding University.

Parenting is embracing children

Today, Robin Adams holds countless fond memories of her husband, Mike, interacting with the couple’s three children, including daughter, Meredith.

“We’ve always been their parents, both of us, we’ve never used that step-term, that’s not, you know, our method or our manner,” Robin Adams said.

“Obviously, it was always great to see my boys on the fi eld,” Robin Adams said. “Meredith was always down on the track or right beside the field dancing for the team and that’s always been awesome.”

There was one moment in particular, which sherecalls occurred the third or fourth year after they got married.

“Mike has a tendency, as you might have noticed, that he squats in a very uncomfortable-looking position on the side of the field,” Robin Adams said.

“It hurts my knees to look at him and Jon David was right next to him doing that same position and a photographer for the paper caught it.”

The photo was in the paper the next day with a caption, “Like father, like son,” which was huge in Robin’s eyes because Mike is not Jon David’s biological parent.

“That was pretty special to see that ‘Like father, like son,’ when everybody knows Mike and Meredith look just alike and now that Spencer’s on the sideline sometimes I have to look for gray hairs to tell them apart from behind, but for somebody to make that connection with Jon David, that was really cool.”

“Our parents did a great job of making the transition to a blended family as easy as possible,” SpencerAdams said. “We would always do things together as a whole family to try to strengthen the bond.” One of the best

games of career

“Friday night’s game at Newport was one of the best games I have ever been involved in during my 30-plus years on the sideline,” Mike Adams said.

Newport’s Carl Turner rushed for 319 yards on 39 carries and had a 42-yard touch down reception, only to be matched by Farmington’s Spencer Boudrey who rushed 25 times for 317 yards and had four receptions for another 151 yards and scored all fi ve Cardinal touchdowns.

“Our kids showed great resilience coming frombehind on several occasions,” Mike Adams said, noting Newport scored to go up 14 with 8:40 to go in the game.

“But we fought back and when freshman Justice Hobbs threw to Mike Ingram for our fi fth successful 2-point try we retook the lead with 3 minutes left in the game,” Mike Adams said. ”Unfortunately, we left them a little too much time and they scored on a 5-yard pass with 31 seconds left to win the game. It was a tough way to end our season, but it also was a tribute to the way our team played that night and throughout the year.”

Reflections of an adult child

Jon David thinks that since Baker, his biologicalfather, was a basketball player in college, he would have solely concentrated on basketball and maybe soccer instead of football and track, the two sports his father, Mike Adams, coached at Fayetteville and Farmington.

“I am pretty sure I would have turned out the same,” Jon David said.

“People tell me I look and act a lot like my biological father, so I don’t think anything would change.”

“I would want my future children to know the whole story of our family,” Jon David said.

“To tell you the truth, I cherish the story, but never once have I called my parents ‘step-parents’ or siblings ‘step-brother and sister.’ We’re a normal family with normal family qualities. It’s just that we’ve been blessed beyond measure.”