Jim Walker

jim.walker@irontontribune.com

SOUTH POINT ­— When it comes to evaluating coaches, most of the time it comes down to winning.

But when it comes to coaching for Dave Adams, it comes down to players.

The South Point Lady Pointers 20-year veteran head coach has the wins but he is more concerned with his players.

When the Lady Pointers rolled past the Gallipolis Blue Angels 44-25 on Dec.6, that win gave Adams his milestone victory.

“It really is about players. We’ve had really good groups. We’ve had three or four 20-win seasons which helps a lot to get your there. Then there was that stretch with Kayla (Fletcher) and her group,” said Adams who won eight Ohio Valley Conference titles during his first 10 years as the coach and has averaged 15 wins a season.

“In coaching, when you see people improve and do things right, that’s what makes it worth doing. You aren’t in it for the money. What you get paid per the hour isn’t much. You do it for other reasons.”

Getting 300 wins is an impressive milestone, but it was even more special for Adams who is a 1981 graduate of South Point where he played basketball.

So, was it a little more special to achieve the milestone at your alma mater?

“It is,” said Adams. “I don’t think anybody who coaches feels differently about their home school. I’ve been fortunate enough to be there.

“I’ve really considered myself really lucky to be able to part of basketball and be part of the school in the town I grew up in.”

It was baseball Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra who gave one of his Yogi-isms by saying, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

That doesn’t tell you which road to take, and that’s kind of what happened to Adams whose career was detoured from his original plan.

Adams always saw himself coaching the boys’ team at some point in his career. But after coaching six years in the girls’ program as an assistant under Joe Stevens, his career was sent down a different path.

“I coached with Joe Stevens, enjoyed it and now it’s been 20 years,” said Adams who was an assistant to Stevens for six seasons. “The thing with the girls, they pretty much do what you ask them to do.”

Adams doesn’t regret the path he took and he reflected on some of the more memorable moments that also helped mold him into the coach he has become.

“Going to the regionals twice was really special. No one has done that other than the one boys’ team with (Rick) Huckaby. It was new to the girls and all new to me, too. It was just really special,” he said.

It was during those years when the Lady Pointers were making deep runs in the tournament that they played some top-level teams. Not only did it make his team better, but Adams said it made him better.

“Those years we beat some really good teams, we got to play some really good teams, that’s when I feel like I really learned how to coach. I was forced to prepare for teams and play against good coaches that forced me to get better,” said Adams.

“We’ve won 300 games and we haven’t played a light schedule. Sometimes my conference games were my easiest games on the schedule. Recently, Fairland has been really good, Doug (Graham at Ironton) always had good teams, but we always tried to play good teams outside the conference.”

Dave Adams’ teams have played a lot of teams inside and outside the conference, and they’ve won a lot of games inside and outside the conference.

About 300 of them.