A Real Coach

This is a very touching and moving article about the man who coached me in the decathlon. Sam and I did not always agree on things but he was and is a man of his conviction and an inspiration. Sam gave the same time to me an also ran who scored 5800 points as he did the world class guys.

Coach's journey: Longtime mentor to UCSB athletes adjusting to life with Alzheimer's
JOHN ZANT, NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER

At a backyard party in Goleta last summer, a bunch of former athletes, now in their 40s and 50s, talked about the good old days when they perspired from running laps rather than making mortgage payments.

Standing off to the side was an older man who looked as fit as any of them. He was 6 feet tall, lean and craggy-faced in a Clint Eastwood sort of way, with closely trimmed gray hair turning to white. This was Sam Adams. The assemblage had come from near and far to celebrate his 74th birthday.

Adams coached track and field at UCSB for 34 years, and during most of that time he did double duty as a coach for multi-event postgraduate athletes. It was tedious work -- the men were trying to master 10 events in the decathlon, the women seven in the heptathlon -- but Adams supervised their training with patience and devotion.

He had been a decathlete himself, almost good enough to make the U.S. Olympic team in 1956. Prior to that, he was the captain of UC Berkeley's track team and a 1949 graduate of Santa Ynez Valley High who excelled in every sport.

"There's not a day goes by I don't think of Sam," said Mike "Spider" Brown, who came out from Connecticut for this gathering.
"Sam will always be part of my memory," said Peter Allen, who stayed in Santa Barbara after traveling from his native New Zealand to be coached by Adams.

Luanne Morris addressed him: "Sam, we are who we are and we're successful in life in a large part because of your influence on us."

Adams listened intently. He was the original man of few words. The former athletes joked that "Not bad" constituted extravagant praise from their coach.
But then he stood up and gave a short, remarkable speech. "Boy, you are a great group," he said. "I wish I could say more. Boy, I'll tell you something. I sort of love you all." As he and his wife, Sue, were making their leave, Adams came up to Allen and said, "You know, I've got this thing. It's . . . it's . . ."

Eventually he found the word. "It's Alzheimer's."

SUMMER OF 2003
Sam Adams had been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease in 1999. There was no cure for it -- and there still is none -- but medical experts have come up with prescriptions and recommendations to allay and delay its effects.
One of them came naturally to Adams: physical activity.

On a warm summer day, Sam was leading the way up the Rattlesnake Canyon trail. Keeping up with him was a lung-heaving challenge. He was wearing white leather tennis shoes with "Rod Laver" embossed on each heel. As you followed him uphill, each time a foot landed, you saw it . . . left "Rod Laver," right "Rod Laver," left "Rod Laver," right "Rod Laver" . . . Physically, you felt as if you were running back and forth while the erstwhile tennis champion thumped shots to each side.

Mercifully, Sam stopped to take a breather and talk. He had two hiking companions. One of them, Phil Z., also had Alzheimer's disease. They met at a support group and found they shared a love of the outdoors. Phil's name went onto "My Friends List," which Sam had printed on three small sheets of paper that he kept in his wallet. He referred to it often, whenever he saw a familiar face or thought of somebody.

Throughout his career, Sam had kept a tight rein on his feelings. But now, while he was still able to express himself fully, he spoke openly about his becoming an Alzheimer's patient.
"We're people," he said. "We're human beings. We're us. This whole thing we're going through, I told myself, 'I'm going to accept this thing.' There's nothing I can do."

A mile farther on, he said, "The best thing you can do is get in touch with your feelings and exude them, let them out. It's the only thing you can do."

At that time, he was still helping out as a volunteer coach at Westmont College.

"I tell the kids, 'I may not know your name, but I know who you are. I'm a friend of yours.' "

He voiced random memories of his own youthful adventures, like the time he was on a canoe trip near the Arctic Circle and came upon an 8-foot-tall bear . . . or the time he and a friend tried to take a firetruck with a power nozzle into Mexico to prospect for gold. Sometimes he could not recall simple words. Instead of "oil," he said, "It's not water. It's that other stuff that flows. You can't drink it. You can set it on fire."

On the way back down the trail, Sam took a detour. He led us on a path toward the creek. It ended above a pretty waterfall that spilled into a deep pool. Phil Z., who had been rather quiet up to then, spoke up.

"This is a neat place," he said. "I hope I remember it."

WEEKLY BREAKFASTS
After he retired from UCSB in 1992, Adams did not stay away from track and field. Westmont coach Russell Smelley talked him into helping the Warriors with their throwing techniques. Along with John Larralde, another coach, they began a tradition of having breakfast together every Tuesday at Peabody's on Coast Village Road.

One day, after his Alzheimer's started to kick in, Adams got lost on his way to the restaurant and wound up at the beach. He stopped driving after that, but the breakfasts continue. Larralde picks him up every Tuesday morning. Three days after his birthday party, Adams told his breakfast companions about it.

"A bunch of people I've known came hundreds of miles yesterday from all over," he said. "Big guys, strong guys."
Smelley described Adams as "the John Wayne of track and field." Because of the older coach's reputation for crustiness, Smelley said he was concerned about his ability to deal with enrollees at the school's youth camp.

"Sam goes over and picks up a 6-year-old and puts him over his shoulder," Smelley said. "I guess there was nothing to worry about. Sam's persona was rough and tough on the surface, but underneath he's very caring."

Adams mostly sits and listens at breakfast, but every once in a while he pipes up to give a piece of coaching philosophy.
"They ask me what they have to do," he said. "I say, 'You don't have to do anything. Here's what you get to do. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.' "

COFFEE AT WOMBLE'S
Everybody who's coached at UCSB has a friend in Phil Womble, a steadfast fan of Gaucho athletics. While he was still driving, Sam Adams paid a visit to Womble, who has cerebral palsy.
"You know what bugs me the most?" Womble asked. "It's people who make a big deal about my disability."
"You're Phil Womble," Adams said.
"This disability is such a small part of who I am."
"So what? It's there. You live with it."
"You care about the individual, Sam, not about outside stuff."
"That's because of people like you. You've always been a good guy. Yes, yes, yes, you are."
"You're a good guy, too, Sam."
"We were Welsh."
"Did you ever welsh on anybody?"
"Heck, no," Adams said, looking offended.
"You gave me an opening," Womble said, "and I took it."

SUE ADAMS
Sam's wife learned not to make her life dependent on him. He worked long hours as a coach, and summers often found him traveling overseas. He was coach of U.S. decathlon teams on three trips behind the Iron Curtain during the '70s -- to Tallinn, Estonia; Donetsk, Ukraine; and St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1982, he was head coach of the entire U.S. men's track team in a historic meet at Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany.

"I was not going to sit at home drumming my fingers on the dining-room table, waiting for Sam to come home," Sue said. She became a businesswoman and community volunteer.

They met in Santa Barbara, when Sam was a graduate student at UCSB, and got married in 1959. They had a daughter, Wendy, and a son, John.

Wendy was physically challenged from birth. Her life was a struggle, but she managed to get through school and land a job. She died in 1995 at the age of 34.

"That was a bump in the road for Sam," Sue Adams said. "He doesn't like staying with pain. He puts things behind him really quickly. He gets right up and keeps running."

She could only admire her husband's steadfastness and dedication to his job. Sam weathered a professional crisis in 1979 when Al Negratti, then UCSB's athletic director, removed him from coaching the Gaucho men's team. Negratti did not think he was recruiting aggressively enough, while Adams countered that there wasn't much he could do with three scholarships. Adams rejected an ultimatum -- either accept a position as women's track-and-field coach or be fired -- and after a show of support by dozens of athletes, he remained at UCSB as director of a newly created "Outreach" program in which he coached postgraduate athletes from all over the world. In 1982, Adams was restored as Gaucho track-and-field coach by a new athletic director.
"Sam never bent," Sue Adams said. "He just doesn't quit."

His determination was fueled, she said, by disappointments. He might have gone to the 1956 Olympics as an alternate with medalists Milt Campbell, Rafer Johnson and Bob Richards, but he fell short by one point in the U.S. decathlon trials.
"He missed the Olympics by inches," Sue said. "He missed being an Olympic coach twice by close decisions. Those were bitter pills to swallow."

But with Alzheimer's closing in, his grudges vanished.

"Sam was a contrarian, but now that edge is gone," Sue said. "His anger has faded. Now his focus is on being a friend and communicating."

Meanwhile, Sue Adams has distinguished herself as a volunteer in many nonprofit community programs, including St. Cecilia's Society, Casa Esperanza, Hospice of Santa Barbara, the Museum of Natural History and a half-dozen others.
Out of necessity, she has also become an Alzheimer's caregiver.

SUPPORT GROUPS
The Friendship Center, an adult day-care service in Montecito, has welcomed Sam Adams into its community two days a week. He also participates regularly in a support group sponsored by the Central Coast Alzheimer's Association.

On a Wednesday afternoon, Sam and nine other people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease sat together in a circle.
Barbara Rose, the group leader, got the conversation going by asking what everybody got out of their meetings.

"I come here because of the sense of community."
"I'm not the only one on the street with Alzheimer's."
"Look at us. We're real people. Nobody's wearing bibs and drooling."
"I can talk about what's bothering me and get to laugh."
"These are my very best friends."
"This is where I belong. These are my checkmates."
"It's like a comedy club."
"It's like a clubhouse up in the trees."

Sam Adams said, "It means a lot because with these guys -- these women and guys here -- it makes me feel at home."
Rose asked how his life has changed with Alzheimer's.

"Not very much. I don't remember anything. I can't drive a car. I don't drive a car. I can drive a car but I don't know where. There's probably a whole bunch of people doing the same thing. I used to have a lot of stuff with other people in other places, most of it fun. I had something with 50 guys. It became a decathlon of a great deal of young people."

"This is a new beginning," Rose said. "It teaches you to focus on what's important: Today."

"I never ordered people to do anything," Sam said. "I never said, 'Get your butts going, I'm going to beat your butts off.' "
A man named Ted had a memory moment.

"I wish you were my drill sergeant," he said to Adams.

THE SON
John Adams, 44, is associate director of cardiovascular biology for Arena Pharmaceuticals in Irvine. Despite his medical background, he did not know a lot about Alzheimer's disease when his father was diagnosed. "It was scary for me to think about how it was going to affect him," he said. "It's not as bad as I originally thought it would be. Maybe that's just my experience. Maybe my dad's a special guy."

Alzheimer's is just the latest health challenge that has beset Sam in the last 10 years.

"He's had prostate cancer and colon cancer," John Adams said. "He had a pacemaker installed because of a heart arrhythmia."
Yet his father continues to be a vital force in the family, which includes John's wife, Aster, and their daughters, Kaiya and Matteya.
"My dad has this unwavering positive outlook," John said. "There's no frustration, no self-pity, no shame. He's accepted the challenge and looks forward to every day. To me, that's amazing." It wasn't easy to grow up as the son of an always-in-control coach, he said.

"I'd say he tended to be uncompromising," John said. "Challenging his positions or opinions was usually a waste of time."
He said Alzheimer's disease seems to have had a mellowing effect on his father.

"It's uncovered a previously suppressed dimension of his personality. He's more sympathetic, more open-minded and more affectionate."

But Sam's son knows there will be tough days ahead as Alzheimer's progresses from changing a personality to erasing it.
"We have to think about the future and make plans," he said. "We have to make sure my mom doesn't get overburdened."

THE SUMMER OF 2006
Sam Adams is still hiking, but no longer does he attempt the local mountain trails. He walks in his Mission Canyon neighborhood, starting and finishing at his doorstep. His favorite hike is a loop that covers about 1,500 meters -- the distance he used to run in the last event of the decathlon. He often does it six or seven times a day.

"The progress of his disease has been slow because of his physical regimen," Sue Adams said. "A lot of people would be in a vegetative state."

"I go around and up and back down again," Sam said as he walked along Mission Canyon Road toward Rocky Nook Park. "A long time ago, I went all over the world."

He moved rapidly, with urgency, as if the path would become unfamiliar if he slowed up. If you dawdled for any reason, he became impatient. "Are you coming or not?"

At the edge of the park, he picked up a trail through a forest of oak trees. It took him to county Fire Station 15 on Foothill Road.
Any time the firemen are hanging around outside, they greet him and make sure he goes safely on his way back to Mission Canyon Road.

"We were concerned about him," said Bruce McKaig, an engineer at the station.

McKaig found out where he lived, called Sue Adams and told her they'd look out for him.

When Sam comes home and says, "They were there today," his wife knows he's talking about the firefighters.

"It means so much to Sam when they say, 'Hey, coach, how you doing?' " Sue said. "It's an acknowledgment that he has presence and meaning. It must be innate in the human psyche, the need for affirmation, to feel valued. That can't-be-said-often-enough kind of stuff is so important."

Back home, Sam had a big glass of orange juice. The rays of a setting sun filtered through the trees.

"I'm going to bed pretty soon," he said. "Sam follows the light," Sue said. "When it's dark, he settles down."

SAM'S 75TH
The same group that had celebrated Adams' 74th birthday a year ago gathered last month at the same place -- the home of Ron and Kathy Wopat in Goleta.

The same expressions of gratitude and respect, delivered with even more emotion than before, washed over the old coach.
Cynthia Hester said Adams cared for her when she was a sprinter with a pulled hamstring more than 25 years ago, and now she wanted to support him.

"He's handling his situation with such courage and grace," she said.

None of those athletes had achieved Olympic glory, but they had come to realize that was not the point of their endeavors. Their achievement was the deep, clean, pure feeling that comes from pouring yourself into the pursuit of excellence for its own sake. Sam Adams was their connection to this best part of themselves.

Sue Adams was struck by the power of their attachment to her husband. "They associate him with heroic moments in their lives," she said. "It's like they used to be gladiators, only nobody got eaten."

Kathy Wopat brought out a large, rectangular cake, topped by 75 blazing candles. She set it on a table in front of Sam.
He knew what to do. He took a deep breath and blew. A swath was darkened in the middle of the cake. At his sides, two boys assaulted the last flickering candles until they gave up in a wisp of smoke.... Seventy-five years extinguished.

But the present moment remains aglow, for Sam Adams and for everybody.
e-mail: jzant@newspress.com