THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Coeur d'Alene boys basketball coach Adams a part of Whitworth's memorable season — just not the way he envisioned

Jon Adams and his Whitworth Pirate basketball teammates enjoyed their moment in the sun — literally — last week.

Adams and his teammates reminisced in Riverfront Park in Spokane, on the north side of the Spokane River, on a sunny Wednesday evening as the 1995-96 Whitworth basketball team was one of the inductees into the second class of the Hooptown USA Hall of Fame.

A display marking their achievement — as well of those of the other inductees — can be seen as part of the Hooptown exhibit in the park, near the podium.

Before Gonzaga began its captivation of the region three years later, the Whitworth men were the darlings of Spokane and the Inland Northwest in 1996, making a valiant bid to win the NAIA Division II championship, before falling in overtime in Nampa in the championship game to what was then called Albertson College of Idaho, in Nampa.

Twenty-seven years later, the Pirates weren’t forgotten.

“The evening was fantastic. It was surreal,” recalled Adams, now the head boys basketball coach at Coeur d’Alene High. “I think we had nine of the guys there. They flew in from San Diego, Western Washington, all around the area. And a lot of us had not seen each other for a long time. It was a really, really special evening for all of us, and all of us guys went afterward to the hotel lounge, we sat there telling stories until 1 in the morning with coach (Warren) Friedrichs. It was just like a perfect evening.”

SOMETIMES EVEN perfection comes with an asterisk.

Things happen in life, and it’s up to you how you deal with them.

Jon Adams came to what was then Whitworth College in 1991 planning to play point guard for the Pirates — a short drive away from Coeur d’Alene to the north side of Spokane.

After redshirting his first year at Whitworth, he played three seasons for the Pirates, before a lingering back injury ultimately ended his playing career.

He would have been a redshirt senior on that 1995-96 Whitworth team that made that memorial run.

Instead, he was an assistant coach for the Pirates, working with several players he’d been on the court with the past three seasons.

So last Wednesday night’s ceremony triggered some different memories.

“For me, it’s a little bit bittersweet,” Adams said. “Because that was my team for three years when I was playing, but then my senior year is when I succumbed to my back injury, which really ended my playing career forever. So it was super hard for me; I should be playing.

“But it’s funny how things work out.”

Indeed. Yes, he put his business degree to Whitworth to use for many years after graduation. But coaching created an itch he didn’t know he had, and it lasts to this day.

“The ceremony (last week) was so special, because those were my guys, playing with for three years, building that team,” Adams said. “And to not be able to play was really tough, but it got me into coaching, and here I am, 30 years later, still coaching.”

IN 1991, Coeur d’Alene headed to the state boys basketball tournament in Pocatello with high hopes.

“When we arrived in Pocatello, I was the first person off the bus and I slipped on the ice and hurt my back, the night before our first game,” Adams said.

He fell on the ice, and couldn’t stand up.

“From there I went to the trainers,” Adams said. “I never saw my team until game time because they were trying to get me patched up in time to play. I played through it, and did as good as I could at the state tournament, but I’ve had an issue ever since then.

“I’ve actually had five back surgeries since then.

“Whatever was wrong with my back, that was the catalyst that drove it … there was something there. I still to this day don’t really know what it was, or why I got injured like that. But I know I never let it heal in time.”

Eventually, doctors diagnosed him with three herniations — two in his lower back, one in his neck.

“Funny story,” Adams said. “I heard about this a few years ago, before I moved back to Coeur d’Alene (from Western Washington). “My dad (John) was talking to Kelly Reed at Lake City, and Kelly said ‘You know, we still have a Jon Adams rule at Lake City.’

“My dad said, ‘What do you mean?’

‘To this day,’ Reed said, ‘When we go somewhere and it’s icy outside, we lay down towels outside the bus, so players can walk off the bus.”

Sounds like a rule Adams might consider in his program.

“No we don’t do that … probably should,” he said.

ADAMS REDSHIRTED his first season at Whitworth — not necessarily because of his back, but mostly because Mark Wheeler, one of the best point guards the Pirates ever had, was already there.

The next year, Adams’ redshirt freshman year, the recruiting class included Nate Dunham, an eventual first-team All-American in NAIA Division II, and Louis Vargas, now an assistant women’s basketball coach at North Idaho College.

In 1994-95, Whitworth thought it was headed to nationals but fell one game short. The returning players dubbed the next season the “Redemption Tour,” and had T-shirts designed.

The Pirates also added a couple key recruits, including a 3-point sharpshooter named Nate Williams, who is now the boys basketball coach at Bonners Ferry.

“He was as good a shooter as I ever saw; he really was,” Adams recalled.

In the spring after his junior year, Adams fell out of the bleachers after practice and couldn’t get up. He actually had to drop out of school for a semester; it was too painful to sit in the classroom.

Whitworth had a loaded team returning for the 1995-96 season. Bigs. Shooters. Penetrators. Lockdown defenders. Transition guys. Chemistry.

But because of his back injuries, Adams wasn’t going to be able to be a part of it.

“Warren said, ‘You’re a part of this team, and we need you here,’” Adams said. “Coaching had never even crossed my mind at that point.”

But it was a way to still be around his teammates, some of which he had played with for three seasons.

“If this is the role I have to play, then yeah, I want to be a part of this,” Adams said. “I never thought twice about it — yeah, I need to be here, I’m going to be here, whether I’m playing, or whatever the role is, to contribute.”

And once he started coaching …

“Wow, I really enjoy this,” Adams recalled. “I really enjoy coaching, and that was what kind of took me down the path of continuing to want to coach and be a part of a team like that.”

If his injury hadn’t led him down the path of coach, what would he have been?

“Probably a tractor salesman,” Adams said with a laugh, alluding to Adams Tractor, the family business in the Inland Northwest.

Meanwhile, Whitworth rolled into the 32-team NAIA Division II tournament at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa.

In the third round the Pirates beat Northwest Nazarene, which got an automatic bid into the tournament as the host school.

In the semis, Whitworth rallied from 11 points down with 10 minutes to play to beat William Jewell College 87-83.

After that win, on a Monday night, Whitworth President Bill Robinson canceled classes the next day and chartered six buses for students and staff to make the trip to Nampa for the championship game that night

“I don’t think we thought much of it until we came out for the game.,” Adams recalled. “Before, where we had a few hundred fans, and now, you’ve got the entire student body there. I still remember walking out into the Nazarene gym … oh my gosh! We feel like the home team now. We’ve got our entire student body here backing us. That was a pretty special moment.”

Whitworth had a shot to win it in regulation, but eventually fell in overtime to a team with four Division I transfers, as well as Jared Klassen, who starred at Coeur d’Alene before graduating in 1992.

“To this point, I have never watched the game again, and I’m guessing a lot of guys probably haven’t,” Adams said. “But it was special. Once you got away from it, and got past the bad taste of losing the championship game, you start to realize, ‘Wow, we did something pretty special here.’”

“I have a VHS of the game; it’s in my office right here in my house,” Adams said. “I not only have not watched it, I don’t have a VCR anymore to watch it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t watch it.”

ADAMS COACHED one more season at Whitworth, then was an assistant girls basketball coach at Mead for one season.

He eventually moved to the Seattle area, where he worked for the SuperSonics on the business side, and also did the same with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League.

He worked basketball camps and did coaching lessons in the area, just like he did for a few years earlier at North Park Athletic Club in Spokane.

Eventually, he was offered a job as assistant boys coach at Ballard High in Seattle, where he worked for five seasons before the Coeur d’Alene job opened up, and Adams returned home in 2020.

Other than not being able to play golf because of his back, or being unable to lift more than 30 pounds over his head, Adams said he’s in better shape than he probably should be, given the situation.

“I feel better at 50 than I felt at 35, by a long shot,” he said.

And he’s enjoying a profession he never thought he would consider three decades ago, building a program at his alma mater, and poised for a breakthrough season in 2023-24.

“I love every minute of what I’m doing,” Adams said of his current job with the Vikings. “Who knows if maybe the worst thing that ever happened to me opened the door for what’s been the best thing.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.