Adams focuses on hoops for the moment

By Dave Fawcett

Published: June 26, 2008

Maybe next summer at this time, Tommy Adams will decide he’s ready for a change and switch his loyalties from basketball to soccer once and for all.
There are days when he thinks about it and wonders if he could step back out on the field and resume playing a sport he essentially gave up after a successful high school career at Hylton, where he earned all-state honors and scored 28 goals in leading the Bulldogs to a state and national championship.
He even considered talking with a minor-league professional soccer team near his home in Raleigh, N.C that included former Hylton teammate David Stokes on its roster and seeing where that might lead.
But then a call came from his agent. The Indiana Pacers wanted Adams to attend a free-agent workout. And like that, Adams put a hold on any more soccer talk. Basketball still had the upper hand.
The NBA, a league that Adams had tried out for with at least four different teams since graduating from Hampton University in 2002, was beckoning again.
“I can’t pass up on that,” Adams said.
Toronto and Boston have also expressed an interest in looking at Adams, but what those teams do will be determined once they sort through their needs following the NBA Draft.
If for some reason Adams does not make an NBA roster, he will return overseas, where he has spent a good deal of his last two years playing, first in Germany and then in Poland.
The travel becomes a hassle now and then, but the money is good (players can earn six-figure salaries) and expenses are pretty much covered. And Adams has made a name for himself in Europe over the years.
He set a league record in Stockholm, Sweden by scoring 62 points. This season, his second with Trier, a town located in the western part of Germany, he scored 40 points in one game. After leaving that team in January for a team in Poland, Adams averaged 17 points a game in the playoffs, including scoring 35 in one game.
“I’ve had some good things happen over here,” the 6-foot-3 guard said.
It was while playing in Trier that a return to soccer began to percolate in Adams’ mind. Besides being home to a professional basketball team, Trier also has a soccer team in town.
In the spring of 2007, a local television station learned of Adams’ two-sport track record and asked to interview him out on the local soccer field. Adams complied and let the station shoot footage of him working out with the team.
“The manager of the team comes out and says, ‘He can play,’ ” Adams said.
Sensing a marketing opportunity, there was some talk among the teams about possibly having Adams playing both, but Adams nixed the idea, saying he didn’t see himself in the “Deion” Sanders mold, trying to play two sports.
But he returned home, wondering if he still had a future in soccer. He talked to his former high school coach Ken Krieger. He talked to Stokes and talked to another former Hylton teammate, Grover Gibson, who still plays professional soccer in Germany.
They all agreed Adams should at least consider it.
He has kept his foot in the game somewhat with the soccer clinics he puts on with his business, Ball4All. He just hasn’t found the right fit yet.
Of course, the pull of basketball plays a big part in that.
After graduating from Hylton, Adams played four years of basketball at Hampton and was on two NCAA Tournament teams, including the 2001 squad that upset second-seeded Iowa State in the first round.
He was the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Player of the Year his senior season and wanted to pursue a professional basketball career. From 2002 to 2004, he was signed and then released in the preseason by the Boston Celtics, the New York Knicks and the Milwaukee Bucks.
When the NBA didn’t pan out, he took his game to three different professional basketball organizations in the U.S. including two stints in the CBA. He’s had a tryout with a team in Israel and is already entertaining offers for next season from teams in Poland, Spain and Italy.
“To be honest, I enjoy playing,” Adams said. “This is my job. There are a lot of people who would like to be in the shoes that athletes are in.”
So he waits for another chance in the NBA, knowing it is a long shot, but also knowing that if it doesn’t work out and he’s has had his full of hoops, another sport waits.
“I’ll go back overseas if I have to, unless something works out with soccer,” Adams said. “I can still do some things.”
David Fawcett is the sports editor of the Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger. Reach him at (703) 878-8052 or at .