TENNIS’ ADAMS FAMILY : A Southland Teen-Ager Attempts to Follow the Road to Athletic Stardom His Father Has Plotted

To understand Chuck Adams III’s success on the tennis court at age 15, one need not look too far. Standing right behind his son, in full view of the world, is Chuck Adams II.

Some say the father is the son’s best asset. Others say the opposite.

When it comes to the Adams family, it is natural for there to be a slight difference of opinion. The facts speak for themselves.

Chuck Adams--top echelon junior, winner of both the Southern California Sectional junior and men’s championships--does not live the life of a typical 15-year-old. While his peers were in school in Pacific Palisades, Chuck Adams played three professional satellite tournaments in Hawaii. Don’t worry--Adams isn’t missing his classes. He hasn’t stepped inside a classroom since the end of eighth grade.

Welcome to The Grand Plan . . . devised and developed by Chuck Adams II and being executed by Chuck Adams III.

With each month, with each forehand, Chuck is getting closer to fulfilling his father’s dream. Make that his father’s obsession.

“Chuck was raised to be a professional athlete from the day he was born,” says Chuck Adams II.

It’s a common refrain when he talks about his only son. Chuck Adams makes that kind of remark--frequently--to anyone who will listen. But, for him, it’s not idle chit-chat.

Almost everything the father does is aimed toward turning his son into a professional tennis player. And, as a means toward that end, he has completely organized his life around his son.

When Chuck was 4, his father began his son’s education. That education could be called: How to Become a Professional Athlete by 16.

At 5, Chuck would take batting practice for an hour every morning before kindergarten.

At 6, he batted .851 in a YMCA baseball league. That year, Chuck also earned a mention in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd by scoring 48 points in 18 minutes in a basketball game.

At 7, his performance in a youth football game drove the opposing coach to call the game. Chuck had thrown 7 touchdown passes in 45 minutes, including one for 30 yards.

The father shrugs at the memory.

“That’s why he works so hard,” Chuck II says.

The son prefers to give the credit to his father.

“If it wasn’t for my dad I wouldn’t be . . . I’d be just another kid,” Chuck III says.

“He said that?” the father asks. “Really?”

For a moment, Chuck II is speechless.

It’s rare when Chuck Adams II is at a loss for words. He speaks in quiet tones. One must often lean forward to hear.

But the content of his words ring loudly:

--”There’s no 15-year-old in Southern California that is good enough for him. I mean, in the greater Los Angeles area, there’s nobody.”

--”Chuck doesn’t know how good he is. I know how good he is. It’s my opinion that a player who was in the Masters in New York, (Andres) Gomez . . . I think Chuck could beat Gomez on a hard court. I really believe down deep in my heart. I really believe that.”

--”Warren Jacques (Kevin Curren’s coach) has said Chuck is top-10 material in the world.”

To some, Adams is the embodiment of the typical tennis father; that is, he represents everything that is bad in the junior game. He is an extreme example of a father living vicariously through his son.

Maybe. But, it isn’t that easy. The Adams story can’t be told in simple, neat terms.

You might say it all began when the son was 4 1/2. Although there was Chuck’s older sister, Angela, the father didn’t designate her as the athlete of the future.

“Oh, no. I wanted her to be involved in feminine things,” Chuck II says. “Most of the women are masculine in tennis. I was a little bit afraid of that.”

He never considered anything else, he says. Chuck was to go the jock route; Angela turned to modeling and acting.

“I was with my mom before I was 4 1/2,” Chuck III says. “Then my dad sort of took over. With my sister at USC, my mom is doing her career.”

Taking over constituted daily talks between father and son. They would discuss what is needed--mentally and physically--to become a professional athlete. In the beginning, Chuck actually was groomed to be a three-sport athlete.

If Proposition 13 hadn’t been passed, things might have been different. That year, Chuck’s parents scheduled him to attend summer school before the measure forced the program to be dropped.

So, Chuck’s father didn’t know what to do with his son. One day, when they were driving on Pacific Coast Highway near their home, Chuck II had a flash of inspiration.

“I thought for a few minutes and said, ‘Would you like to play tennis this summer?’ ” Chuck II recalls.

The son agreed.

Then, instead of driving home, Adams swung into action. He drove to a local tennis shop and bought Chuck five Jimmy Connors’ outfits. The shirts, the socks, the shorts--the works. Before Chuck hit a ball, his father was getting ready for the new sport.

Like many tennis parents, Chuck II has an amazing memory when it comes to the scores of his son’s matches. In fact, with him, one gets the feeling he could describe every point his son has ever played.

“The person you can’t forget in this whole thing is Jamey Wilson,” Chuck II says, referring to his son’s tennis coach. “He’s handled him since his first lesson, when he was 7 years and 2 months. It was June 28, 1978.”

Wilson noticed that the father and son were very enthusiastic about starting the lessons when they signed up. During the two weeks before Chuck started playing, Wilson remembered seeing this youngster with his little racket, hanging around the courts watching him teach tennis. It was Chuck III.

The Wilson-Adams connection worked from the start. Within months, Chuck told his father: “Dad, this is it.” And, that was it for football, basketball and baseball.

“He gave up the other three when he was 7 years and 4 months,” Chuck II says. “But from when he was 5 to 7 1/2, he did awfully well.”

With the total devotion to a tennis career came a change in the father’s activities. Adams, who has a real estate loan business, organized his work schedule to be at his son’s side during the day.

The father and son are inseparable. Now, Chuck II drives Chuck III to his weekly lesson with Wilson. He sits at courtside and watches. During other workouts, he personally conducts Chuck’s drills. And quite often there are practice matches, some at the L.A. Tennis Club, to which the son must be driven.

A typical day lasts from 10:30 in the morning until 6 at night. Then, Adams’ other work day begins.

“I’ve met other parents who are involved,” Wilson says. “But it’s still unusual. His whole life is organized around his son’s tennis.”

It figures to stay that way--at least until Chuck III starts playing the pro tour. Often, when a teen-ager can start driving after turning 16, it gives him a certain measure of independence. With the Adams’ family, there are higher priorities.

“He’s too busy to learn to drive,” says Chuck’s mother, Lois, laughing.

Will things change after he does learn?

“He needs me there to drill him,” Chuck II says. “I’ll drive him and he can relax.”

Sometimes, Adams doesn’t need to drive his son all the way home. Chuck III has been known to tell his father to stop the car so he can run a few miles to their house.

There are some people who reach for their goals. The Adamses run toward theirs.

“He wants to be a pro,” says his father. “With his size, you have to get on with it. . . . He has to get on with it.”

Says Wilson: “I can’t say it doesn’t bother me at all (the obsession with turning pro.) It’s because he seems to be such a well-adjusted kid. But when I do think about it, it does bother me at times.”

Chuck III speaks a little more cautiously than his father about turning pro. He says he would like to establish more credentials in juniors--say, winning a national 18-and-under title--before making the move.

Wilson says he doesn’t really have a reading on Chuck’s feelings.

“I have a hard time trying to tell how he feels about things,” says the man who has been Chuck’s only coach. “Sometimes, when I ask Chuckie a question, his father will answer. He (the son) has never come to me and said how he felt.”

If isn’t clear how Chuck felt when he was taken out of school after eighth grade. He receives his education through a private tutor.

The decision wasn’t a difficult, soul-searching one for the father.

“No, this is the way it’s got to be,” he says. “You see, the competition is not from people in the United States. The competition is from the rest of the world. And guess what? That’s what those kids are doing. If you look at the top 20 in the world, you’ll be very hard-pressed to find a college graduate.”

Lois Adams agrees. “I think he is going to get better schooling,” she says. “There’s so much fooling around in class. I sat in on a class once. I don’t know how anybody gets anything done.”

At first, Chuck III welcomed the decision. He had been trying to play tennis, attend class and study--but claimed it was wearing him out. After school, he needed to take a nap before he could practice.

“After about three or four months of being out of school, I started to miss it,” he says. “I would have been going into ninth grade. It would have been my final year of junior high and I would have liked that. But I stuck with it.

“They (his parents) think there’s plenty of time to go to school when your career is over. They think these years are really precious in building your career. The teen-age years, because that’s when you really develop, I think.”

Chuck doesn’t see his friends from junior high much anymore--only if he happens to run into them. His peer group is made up of young players from the L.A. Tennis Club and teen-aged girls who, the parents say, blitz the Adams’ house with phone calls.

As far as Chuck II is concerned, the Grand Plan is on schedule. The pro career is almost a reality. In the narrow scheme of things, Adams can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Chuck III’s victories in the Southern California junior and men’s sectionals last summer have given his father the signal that he may be ready.

“No 15-year-old has ever won the Southern California sectionals,” Adams said. “He was unseeded when he won the men’s sectionals. Then, a week later, he wins the prestigious L.A. Tennis Club’s men’s championship.”

Lois: “These men are mortified after they lose to him.”

Chuck II: “No, they’re not.”

Lois: “No, they’re not.”

Chuck II: “They’re experienced, seasoned, tough tennis players. Former All-Americans, they’ve won a lot of tournaments. They’ve been on the professional circuit and they’re very skilled and tough mentally. But Chuck happens to be a better player.”

You won’t hear the son talking like that. His father says the son doesn’t know how good he is. For one who has been groomed for star status since age 4, Chuck III is remarkably modest. Adams said if his son heard him say that he could beat Gomez, he would say: ‘Come on, Dad, don’t say that.”

Wilson believes Chuck is more mature than the other young players he coaches, better equipped to handle constructive criticism.

“There was one time when I was giving him a lesson and he was having problems with a groundstroke,” Wilson says. “We had spent about 10 minutes on it. I said, ‘Hold on,’ and then told him a few things. He (Chuck) said, ‘Finally you came over.’ When a lot of kids start getting good, they get stubborn. He was always more than happy to listen and to make any changes that were necessary.”

Last October, Chuck III traveled to Dallas, where his game was evaluated by Jacques. He practiced against some players from Southern Methodist University and attended a party with people of various ages.

He didn’t have any problems fitting in. Almost everyone who has met Chuck III likes him and says good things about him.

Now, if the same were true for the father. . . .

The mere mention of Chuck II triggers criticism in certain tennis circles in Southern California.

They’ll talk and talk about how pushy he is, about the time he allegedly badgered tournament officials for favorable treatment, about him trying to get Chuck into an exclusive tennis club, about pulling Chuck out of school after eighth grade.

But, when it comes to going on the record, the voices fall silent.

Whenever an article is written about the son, it’s almost inevitable that the father becomes a large part of the story. Some tennis people don’t want to be critical badly enough to be so publicly. Some tennis people don’t want to receive phone calls from Chuck II when the newspaper hits the stands. So the talk about the Adams’ family situation is there, but it is behind their backs. In this case, talk is cheap.

“He has a good future, but not as much future as his father thinks,” a local pro said.

Others have said Adams is one of the worst tennis parents they have encountered. One area pro called a run-in he had with Adams the “ugliest thing I’ve ever been involved in.”

Although some have suggested the father’s grasp on reality is tenuous, Adams is somewhat aware of the tennis world’s perception of his role. He has heard some of the criticism directly; some indirectly. More often, people offer opinions on how Chuck’s career is being managed or mismanaged.

Chuck and Lois Adams don’t have any second thoughts about the course their son’s life has taken. They openly worry about the local high school, saying there is an active drug scene among the wealthy teen-agers in Pacific Palisades.

“There are benefits of what we’ve been doing,” the mother says.

Says Chuck II: “The message is to be involved with our kids and you won’t have those kind of problems. A lot of people come to me and say, ‘How do you do it?’ Here, there’s a lot of jealousy involved. People are the first to give you advice. It’s better not to listen.”

Adams talked about the time a stranger approached him at the L.A. Tennis Club and said that Chuck was never going to make it. Outwardly, those kind of incidents don’t appear to bother the father or the son.

Instead of replying to the criticism, Adams says he lets it float right past him.

“We really don’t answer it,” he says. “It’s a combination of jealousy. It’s been going on for years, since he was 6 years old. It’s no problem. He (Chuck) expects to run into it.”

In a sense, Chuck II prefers to only look at the positives of professional life. He sees the glass of water as half full, rather than half empty.

The burnout cases of Tracy Austin, Andrea Jaeger, Aaron Krickstein and Jimmy Arias have been well-documented. Books and articles have also been written about lesser players who failed in their attempts to make it big.

It’s not much of a surprise that the senior Adams would rather ignore those somber stories. For now, there isn’t room for a sad ending to the Grand Plan.

Lois: “He doesn’t pay attention to the negatives.”

Chuck II: “I don’t pay any attention to that.”

Lois: “I wish I had done it how he does it, because everyone is always giving advice. He doesn’t care what anybody thinks.”

Ah, but at one time, Chuck Adams II really did care what someone thought. You might say his late father, Chuck Adams Sr., is actually a pivotal character in this story.

“He died some years ago,” Adams said of his father, a football player at Penn. “He was a selfish person.”

When Adams talks about his father, everything starts to make sense. His tunnel vision, his obsession with his son’s tennis career, his willingness to do anything for Chuck are merely pieces of a large puzzle.

During one of Chuck III’s sessions with Wilson, Adams spoke about his lost dreams. His voice--quiet as usual--was tinged with bitterness.

“I didn’t have a father that motivated me,” he says. “He came and watched me (play sports), but it’s not like this. He was selfish. He was interested in the personal thing. He wasn’t a motivator. He didn’t jump in there with everything.”

His father always wanted him to attend Penn and Adams complied. He played golf there and met Lois in his junior year. Adams says that is the only good thing that happened to him at Penn.

What would have happened if his father did what he is doing for Chuck?

“I definitely would have been a pro golfer,” Adams says without hesitation. “As a golfer, I could have been one of the top golfers in the world. I just missed and I know what it takes.”

For a moment, his recollections are interrupted. Adams turns to watch Chuck, who was serving. Before the lesson, the father had expressed some concern about the son’s service motion.

He watches Chuck hit a few serves and the concern evaporates.

“We have the serve working,” he says. “He was opening up before. When he’s healthy and well, he’s awfully tough to beat.”

It doesn’t bother Wilson to have Chuck’s father at courtside for every lesson. Adams doesn’t interrupt by making suggestions or bother the coach with questions. He just sits and watches Chuck hit shot after shot. The only time he gets out of his chair is to help pick up the balls.

“There was never much pushing from him,” Wilson says. “A lot of people from the area thought he pushed him. But it’s been straight encouragement. When Chuckie didn’t want to do something, he didn’t do it.”

Wilson recognizes the high expectations Adams has for his son. But unlike others in the area, he doesn’t condemn the father. According to Wilson, the pressure doesn’t bother Chuck.

“I think it would bother me,” Wilson says with a laugh.

Another outsider, Warren Bosworth, also sees the situation in a sympathetic light. Bosworth, president of a tennis equipment company and an equipment consultant to most of the top players in the world, has met with Chuck three times and knows the father.

“There are some people I spoke to who didn’t like the things Chuck Adams said,” Bosworth says in a telephone interview from Glastonbury, Conn. “I can empathize with the whole problem of Chuck Adams’ father. He has devoted a major portion of his life to the kid, perhaps even to the detriment of his business. I know what he says sounds boastful, but a lot of people don’t understand. He idolizes the youngster, he’ll do anything for the kid.

“Sometime, when you ask him a question when he’s talking about Chuck, he’ll be oblivious to what you just said. And I wouldn’t doubt that he said Chuck could beat Gomez.”

So, how good is the kid? Will he ever get the chance to play people such as Gomez?

His results in juniors have been good but not outstanding. He isn’t a Krickstein or Scott Davis, who collected junior titles by the bushel.

Chuck III has never won a USTA national junior singles championship or held a No. 1 ranking. He was No. 11 in the 12-and-under division and No. 7 in 14s. According to the tentative Southern California rankings for 1986, Chuck III will be No. 3 in 18s.

While he had a big junior victory last summer--the Southern California sectionals--many of the best players in division were in Northern California, trying to qualify for the Junior Davis Cup team. He didn’t have any strong results in the national junior tournaments last summer. Chuck II says his son was injured or sick during those events.

On the professional satellite circuit, he made it through qualifying in all three tournaments. In the main draw of the first one, he lost to USC’s Rick Leach in two close sets. He lost to obscure players in the other two tournaments, including one ranked in the 700s.

Adams said his son could have done better if he hadn’t been hampered by an injury in the rib cage area. He tore a ligament there before embarking on the December tour. The injury forced him to miss one tournament in Hawaii and at least a week of practice after he returned home.

Curiously, Wilson worried about the professional experiment.

“It’s a little bit scary to me,” he said before Chuck left for Hawaii. “If he wins a few matches over there, it might get in his father’s mind that he should turn pro now.”

If Adams could get the proper financing and support for his son, there’s little doubt the move would be made before Chuck’s 16th birthday.

A few thoughts from tennis observers:

Greg Patton, who coaches UC Irvine’s men’s team and travels with the Junior Davis Cup squad: “I just hope and pray that Chuck Adams is not a casualty because he turns pro too soon.”

Bud Kling, tennis coach at Palisades High: “I think it’s a mistake. I think high school and college tennis is an important part of it. Players need to be in pressure situations with their peers. By doing what he’s doing, he’ll probably get to the same point a little faster. If he did it the other way, he’ll probably get to the same point, maybe even higher. There’s no way to know.”

This much is known. For the last couple of years, Chuck Adams has been playing against the older kids. If he loses, there is always an out: He’s only 15. He’s playing against 18-year-olds.

Call it a safety net. Except in the pros, the net is much larger. Almost anything a young player does on the tour is gravy--the ultimate underdog story.

But what happens in a few years? Eventually, the no-pressure-for-the-youngster syndrome disappears. Chuck Adams will be expected to win. If he doesn’t make it on the major tour, there isn’t much glamour in the lowest levels of the game, in such places as Lagos, New Delhi or Bari.

“I don’t think they are quite aware of how tough it is for someone who is so young,” Wilson says. “He won’t really have a peer group. If he loses in the first round of a tournament, he’s going to have to stick around the rest of the week. I think they are just looking for the good points. They don’t want to find anything that would be a detriment to their plans.”

Bosworth agrees.

“Because I work with Ivan Lendl’s rackets, Mr. Adams thinks I walk on water,” he says. “And I think he’d respect my opinion, but only to a point. Only until it started to interfere with his personal goals.”

There’s no telling how well Chuck Adams III will fare in professional tennis . . . just as, apparently, there is no telling Chuck Adams II how to prepare his son for such a career.

The Grand Plan has been established. And the Grand Plan does not allow for revisions.