The Adams Family : A Native Son Returns to Antelope Valley and, With Unity as a Theme, Restores a Once-Downtrodden Basketball Program to Prominence

Marc Adams’ grandmother dubbed him Skip as a toddler because he wouldn’t stay put. And, after carefree teen-age years in Lancaster spent sinking basketballs and golf balls better than anyone in town, skip he did.

Adams zigged to Reno on a basketball scholarship, zagged to the University of Texas as a graduate assistant, hired on at a Texas high school for his first coaching job, returned to the Longhorns as a full-time assistant, coached another high school team, then moved to New Mexico State as an assistant from 1979 to 1985.

This skipping business worked out well enough for Adams to carve out a Division I coaching career by his mid-30s. Yet he remained unfulfilled. Where would he skip to next?

The answer became clear in 1986 when the coaching job opened at Antelope Valley High--the school Adams had led to the Southern Section 2-A final 20 years earlier. Adams had skipped full circle, returning home to where the Antelopes play.

Four years later, Adams’ team has won back-to-back Golden League championships, regularly packs its gym with 2,000 fans and will take a record of 21-5 into the second round of the Southern Section 5-AA Division playoffs tonight at 7:30 at Redlands. He has developed a Division I player, Chris Walters, who will attend Texas El Paso.

For all his wanderings, Skip Adams could come home again.

“I always had it in the back of my mind to return to AV,” he said. “I guess I always hoped the opportunity would arise.”

The Antelope Valley to which he returned was far different from the one he left in 1968, however. The sleepy town of Lancaster had become the fastest-growing city in the state. More than the times had changed.

In his spare time as a teen-ager, Adams found little to do but perfect his miniature golf game, becoming so proficient that he won a new ’65 Ford Mustang after becoming national Putt-Putt champion the summer after his junior year in high school.

In his players’ spare time, Adams would discover, some of them would take to bullying fellow students. And one three-year starter would confuse spare time with class time and become ineligible just before playoff time.

Also, football had replaced basketball as the sport of preference at Antelope Valley: The basketball team had not won a league championship since winning 10 of 11 from 1962-72.

“I didn’t know how the program had deteriorated,” Adams recalled. “Initially, I went through . . . culture shock.”

Atalented freshman team that was 18-0 gave Adams hope as he weathered a 5-19 first season. Two of those freshmen--Walters and Jabbar Briggs--started on the varsity as sophomores, when Antelope Valley finished third in the league and won a playoff game. Last season, a junior-dominated group was league co-champion.

“AV always had athletes, but we usually found a way to beat them,” said John Clark, coach at Golden League rival Saugus. “Then Skip Adams went out there, and he means business. He is an exceptional coach.”

By last summer, the Antelopes were really rolling, all the way to Los Angeles, in fact, for summer-league games. Adams immersed himself in the team; he’d have the players to his house for barbecues and the next day they’d go out and skewer another opponent.

“Outside the gym, Coach Adams is like a best friend,” said John Pletsch, a 6-foot-8 center who along with Walters, Briggs, and guards B. J. Petersen and Bobby Paiz formed the nucleus of the group that grew together over four years. Junior forward Brock Chase was the final cog in what promised to be the school’s finest team in two decades.

The coach was having the time of his life with this latest Antelope herd. “If you’re not involved in players’ lives outside of basketball, you are missing out on a lot of fun stuff that coaching can provide for you,” Adams said.

The former All-Southern Section guard had restored the program’s tradition, and he reminded the students every chance he could. When a former teammate of his--Tony Mason, the school’s all-time leading rebounder and the principal at Fullerton High--died of cancer in December, Adams took the microphone before a game and asked for a moment of silence.

Roots, continuity, drawing on the past to enhance the future, those were the values Adams stressed.

“He told us that the team he played on made it to the CIF final and that nobody from that team was good enough to start on our team,” said Pletsch, who like most Antelope Valley players has lived in Lancaster for more than a decade. “He told us that anything is possible.”

Including a Southern Section championship, an accomplishment that had eluded Adams in high school when a last-second Santa Maria basket in the final at Pauley Pavilion shot down the Antelopes.

But with the abruptness of that buzzer-beater 24 years ago, the innocence of this season came to a shocking end.

Four Antelope Valley players were found guilty in Juvenile Court of misdemeanor assault in January after an incident in the campus parking lot in which they demanded money from four fellow students. The players--one senior and three juniors--were all reserves but their subsequent suspension from school reduced the Antelopes’ roster to six effective players.

“It cast a black cloud over the program,” Adams said.

Moods darkened further after a 92-46 drubbing at the hands of City Section power Cleveland two weeks later. Adams and his players, who had been closely following basketball all over the Southland to see how they compared, were hurt and humiliated. In an uncharacteristic outburst, Adams lashed out at a Times reporter after reading the headline, “Cleveland Takes the ‘Lopes for a Loop.”

“We were embarrassed,” Walters recalled. “Coach didn’t come down on us, though. He just said we had to pull together and raise our intensity to overcome losing those four guys.”

Antelope Valley won its next eight games and 10 of its next 11 to clinch the league title. But still another setback loomed.

Semester grades came out with a week to play in the regular season and Briggs, so strong on defense that he was assigned to cover every opponent’s best player regardless of position, was declared academically ineligible.

“I never even discussed it with the team, we just went on,” Adams said. “We didn’t have time to dwell on what we don’t have. I hurt more for Jabbar than for the team.”

Adams steadfastly refuses to speak in less-than-glowing terms of any player, even the recently fallen. These are, after all, his pals.

The players convicted of assault were academically ineligible after their monthlong suspension from school, otherwise the coach would have welcomed them back to the team with open arms.

“They are ineligible because they missed so much school,” said Adams, adding that he is counting on the three juniors for next season.

Even after a 51-43 loss to Palmdale in the regular-season finale, Adams responded in a forgiving manner. “He wasn’t upset because he knew we all tried our hardest,” Pletsch said.

The lack of depth was glaring, however. Southern Section title? Suddenly, getting past the first round seemed formidable.

The Antelopes responded with an 81-76 victory Tuesday over Montebello. Redlands (21-6) will offer a greater challenge tonight.

The goal of a championship has been preempted by a desire to keep the team alive for another day.

“There is just something about Coach Adams and the friendship we share. Now I know what a player’s coach is all about,” Walters said. “I wish the season could never end.”

When it does, the four-year turnaround of the basketball program will be complete. The close-knit senior group will split.

Will Skip do the same?

“It’s not my ambition to return to college ball,” he said, although he doesn’t rule out the possibility. “I feel like we’ve turned the corner. Kids are walking around campus with basketballs again. It’s catching on.”