Former NCAA director of officials John Adams had deep roots in basketball, Indianapolis

Bob Lovell was coaching at Franklin College in the late 1970s when he received a call, out of the blue, from a young basketball official asking about opportunities to work games.

"At the time, we had a (junior varsity) team," Lovell said. "So I said, 'Yeah come on down here and call a JV game.' That’s how it started, and I first met John Adams."

It was the start of a lifelong friendship. Years later, when Adams was working as the national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, he called Lovell courtside from a Final Four game. “None of this would be possible without you,” Adams said.

Lovell was brought to tears Friday as he recalled that memory. Adams, 74, died Thursday, surrounded by family, after battling a recurrence of head and neck cancer. A lifelong love of sports was surpassed only by Adams’ love of his family, including his wife of 49 years, Mary Beth, and four sons: Johnny, Stephen, Patrick and Tim, their four spouses and seven grandchildren.

“At his happiest, he was around his family,” said Andy Fagan, who grew with the Adams boys and had Tim on his coaching staffs at Brebeuf Jesuit and Cathedral for seven years.

Adams, a native of White Plains, N.Y., graduated from Indiana State in 1971 and returned to Indiana with Mary Beth after a short stint working on Wall Street. The couple settled in Indianapolis in 1973 and Adams managed The Athletic Department, a chain of retail sporting goods stores before working with Browning from 1983 to 2005 in commercial real estate. But no matter where his work took him, sports were never too far away.

“When you are 10 years old and you love sports, your parents would indulge you to a certain extent and then want to move on to something else,” said Jeremy Gray, the senior associate athletic director for strategic communications at Indiana University. “John could talk to an 11-year-old about the National League East standings for an hour. John loved sports.”

Adams coached Gray’s Allisonville Little League All-Star baseball team with a couple of other dads when sons Johnny and Stephen played. “You better hit the cutoff man,” Gray said with a laugh on Adams’ coaching acumen.

It was also during that time Adams worked his way up as a basketball official at the high school and college level. When Lovell moved on from Franklin to IUPUI, he had Adams officiate a game "against my better judgement."

"I may have said some things I shouldn’t have said," Lovell said.

But the two patched things up quickly, and in 1999 were asked by Horizon League commissioner Jon LeCrone to join the league. Lovell was hired as director of basketball operations, and he had a hand in bringing on Adams as the coordinator of officials.

“He was the easy choice — the only choice,” Lovell said. “Not only was he a great friend, but quite frankly was just a great listener and problem solver. He could find solutions to get things done and he wasn’t afraid to take a chance and do things differently if it was going to make things better. I wasn’t surprised he had a meteoric rise.”

But almost immediately after Adams took the Horizon League position, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He told Lovell he was planning to resign. “I said, ‘I’m not accepting it,’” Lovell said. “I said, ‘I don’t care if you have cancer or not, I’m not doing this without you. You’ve done all the assignments and the schedule is done, just do what you need to do to get better.’ And he managed to get better and continued.”

Those close to Adams say his honesty was a key to his success. When Fagan took the job at Brebeuf and had Tim Adams on his staff, he lost his second game to Lawrence North by 18 points. After the game, John pulled Fagan aside and delivered a message that has stayed with him in the 16 years since.

“He said, ‘Coaches are much better when they coach and let officials officiate,’” said Fagan, who has since moved to Greensville, S.C. “Maybe some referees in Indiana disagree, but I always tried to adhere to that. He didn’t make a big deal about it, but it resonated with me.”

After that 6-14 season, Adams invited Fagan to ride with him to a game at Franklin College, where Adams was planning to watch an officiating crew. Fagan was expecting advice. “I called Tim before we went and said, ‘He’s going to tell me we suck as coaches,’” Fagan said. “Tim’s like, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’”

But he didn’t. Fagan kept waiting for the advice. “For the hammer to drop,” he said. It never happened. There was no big talk. He just wanted to spend time with Fagan, allowing him to see a game from a different perspective.

“It was probably the most enjoyable time I spent with him,” Fagan said. “He had a unique way of hearing you and understanding what you are going through and then helping you elevate forward.”

Adams was not afraid to offer his opinion, either, especially in his role as national coordinator for officials, a role he held from 2008 to 2015. Dan Gavitt, NCAA senior vice president of basketball, noted his “reputation as an expert evaluator and his knowledge of the game’s playing rules” led him to that position.

But Adams was also a people person.

“Some people are connectors,” said LeCrone, who served as Horizon League commissioner for 29 years and worked directly with Adams. “John is a connector. He wants to get people together and have fun and do business together.”

Tom Crean met Adams in 2008 in Sarasota, Fla., at the Dick Vitale Gala, an annual event to raise money for the V Foundation for cancer research started by Jim Valvano. Crean, recently hired at Indiana, liked Adams immediately.

“From the first time I met him, what stood out was that the was honest, straightforward and had a clear answer for everything,” Crean said. “We built a relationship from there. He was very comfortable with who he was. He didn’t put on airs for anybody, but what I really came to love about him was that he just wanted to help people.”

What started out as a professional relationship evolved into a personal friendship. When Adams ended his tenure as the director of officials in 2015, Crean reached out to Adams about working as a consultant for the basketball program. Adams, who was working as chief operating officer with Hathaway Strategies, got a ring when IU won the Big Ten Conference regular season outright in 2015-16.

“He was an inspiration to me,” Crean said. “He was a role model. He cared about God, and I watched the way he loved his family. Those were things that stood out to me. I love the man. I learned so much from him that went beyond basketball. He was a huge part of our program for those two years.”

Crean was stunned to read a text Thursday from Tim Adams that John had died. He had just texted with him Monday. They frequently exchanged texts multiple times a week.

“I sent him a prayer Monday with no idea that it would be our last text,” Crean said. “I didn’t know it was to that point. But looking back, I thank God that was our last conversation. He was a loved man who meant a lot to a lot of people.”

Family and friends will gather at St. Pius X Catholic Church Tuesday from 9:30 to noon with mass of Christian burial beginning at noon.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Former NCAA director of officials John Adams dies after cancer fight