Woodbery - Harry Adams Doing So Much Better After Football

[Townhallsavoy]

TL:DR - Harry Adams was booted off the football team, which only helped him.  He's now a successful athlete and student and is on track to graduate, none of which would have happened if he stayed on the football team.  Auburn football hates other sports and won't let kids run track.  Gene Chizik kicked Adams off, but details are unknown.  Harry Adams is a great kid who decided to run track instead of football. 

AUBURN, Alabama -- One of Auburn's best track athletes and, indeed, one of the fastest men in the country might not be breaking records right now if he hadn't been kicked off the football team almost three years ago.

In fact, Harry Adams probably wouldn't be running track at all.

Adams will help lead the Tigers into the NCAA Championships this week in Des Moines, Iowa, where he hopes to compete for a title in the 200 meters and the 4x100 relay. Adams has already posted several record times this year, including a world-leading 20.10 seconds in the 200 in April and a then-world-record 6.55 in the 60 meters in January.

"If I hadn't made a commitment to track, I wouldn't be at this level right now," he said in an interview last week before leaving for Iowa. "I'm glad I did."

Auburn track coach Ralph Spry said there are more athletes like Adams out there and he'd like to train them. But doing so requires a relationship between the football and track programs that doesn't yet exist.

"To be honest with you, unfortunately, we're just not really there in terms of football-track relationship," Spry said. "If there is a serious superstar football player who definitely wants to run track, then Auburn may not be on that radar."

When coach Gene Chizik booted Adams from the football team in October 2010, it warranted little more than a short brief in most media reports. Adams played sparingly on special teams and at cornerback and receiver. He was fast but hadn't accomplished much else on the football field.

Spry knew about Adams from his high school days in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Adams was a top sprinter.

"I came and talked to him and said, 'Coach, things are not working right with football. I know I'm going to be off the team pretty soon, so I want to come join the track team,'" said Adams, who didn't discuss specifics surrounding his departure from the football program.

Adams, who is on track to graduate this fall after going through academic struggles early in his college career, said competitiveness in football transfers easily to the track.

"I came in to be the best," he said. "Football didn't go the way I wanted to, but I ran track in high school. I won a couple of state titles. I knew I could come in with the mindset of trying to be great at this sport."

Spry said he stays out of football and won't poach recruits or players from the sport, but he firmly believes both football and track could benefit from dual athletes on campus.

"We're working on that," he said. "It helps everybody if we can get that going because there are a lot of kids out there that are studs in terms of football as well as track."

Spry cites Florida's Jeff Demps and LSU's Xavier Carter and Bennie Brazelle as examples of dual-sport stars, and holds out hope that recent signee Jonathan Jones might break the mold at Auburn. Jones was a championship high school hurdler and Spry thinks he could win titles in the event in the SEC.

Training, however, is sometimes the sticking point in a track-football marriage. During the football offseason, dual-sport athletes are typically given freedom to concentrate on track workouts rather than football-style conditioning.

"The biggest thing you got to tweak is just backing off of workouts, so when they do run track they're able to do purely track," Spry said. "It's tough when you do football workouts -- mat drills, pushing boards -- and then they come over to the track with tired legs. If I try to do any technical work with tired legs, that's how you get injuries."

The payoff for the football team, Spry said, will be faster receivers and cornerbacks.

"It's a win-win situation," he said. "Most of the guys that are going to run track are skill-position guys, not linebackers or defensive ends or defensive tackles that have to keep the mass on. We're going to help them out on speed development. They'll get 'em back faster."

Adams attended a football powerhouse, Dillard High, that has a long list of graduates in college and the NFL. In that climate, it can be tough to say no to a football scholarship. But Adams said he's the perfect example of why talented high school track athletes should think hard before giving up the sport.

"A lot of kids want to play football because that's the American dream for a lot of kids in high school," Adams said. "But what's best for you? That's all I can tell them. You make the decision. If you want to go to a school that lets you do both, then you can make a decision there. Auburn didn't let me do that here, so I had to make a decision. It was track, and I love my decision."

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/06/after_football_career_stumbles.html#incart_river_default

[Kaos]

Yet another brick.

[JR4AU]

Is it possible for woodbammer to write an Auburn story that is all positive? 

[Buzz Killington]

Is it possible for woodbammer to write an Auburn story that is all positive?

Charles Goldberg steals all the positive stories.

[GH2001]

Hack job from a hack journalist.

On a related note, I will be watching him this weekend at the NCAA's. Should be fun.

[CCTAU]

Is it true? If so, then why aren't we up in arms about it?

Did not some of the greatest athletes AU has put out over the past run track.

One of the most awesome sights in track in the early 80s was the Bo Jackson vs Hershel Walker sprints.

There have been many others. Is the training schedule of a football player so stringent that we won't let them run track exclusively during track season?

[AUChizad]

Is it true? If so, then why aren't we up in arms about it?

Did not some of the greatest athletes AU has put out over the past run track.

One of the most awesome sights in track in the early 80s was the Bo Jackson vs Hershel Walker sprints.

There have been many others. Is the training schedule of a football player so stringent that we won't let them run track exclusively during track season?

No, it's not true. Which is the biggest part of the problem.

He was kicked off the team for disciplinary reasons.

Woodbery himself acknowledges it via twitter.

https://twitter.com/auburnbeat/status/210075668795490304

[JR4AU]

No, it's not true. Which is the biggest part of the problem.

He was kicked off the team for disciplinary reasons.

Woodbery himself acknowledges it via twitter.

https://twitter.com/auburnbeat/status/210075668795490304

Reading between the lines, ie what Adams said about knowing he wasn't long for football tells me he was skipping workouts, or meetings and such.  IOW, he had had enough of football, but rather than quit, he forced Chiz to tell him he was off the team.  Woodbammer tries to make it sound like he got in trouble. 

[Townhallsavoy]

Reading between the lines, ie what Adams said about knowing he wasn't long for football tells me he was skipping workouts, or meetings and such.  IOW, he had had enough of football, but rather than quit, he forced Chiz to tell him he was off the team.  Woodbammer tries to make it sound like he got in trouble.

Actually, I think Adams did have some discipline issues that went further than skipping workouts.  I can't say that with 100% confidence.

Either way, Woodbery definitely wrote this article to show what a hindrance the football team is and how one particular player was able to blossom away from Chizik and Auburn football. 

[JR4AU]

Actually, I think Adams did have some discipline issues that went further than skipping workouts.  I can't say that with 100% confidence.

Either way, Woodbery definitely wrote this article to show what a hindrance the football team is and how one particular player was able to blossom away from Chizik and Auburn football.

I was just speculating.  I don't know.  They can't have been too bad if they didn't make the paper, or get him thrown out of school.  Seems to have kept it between the lines since then.

[The Prowler]

Actually, I think Adams did have some discipline issues that went further than skipping workouts.  I can't say that with 100% confidence.

Either way, Woodbery definitely wrote this article to show what a hindrance the football team is and how one particular player was able to blossom away from Chizik and Auburn football.

That and to show any two sport athlete that's thinking about attending Auburn, they should look elsewhere, because at Auburn you won't be able to play two sports *ahem* Auburn commit & two sport star QB Jeremy Johnson.

[wesfau2]

That and to show any two sport athlete that's thinking about attending Auburn, they should look elsewhere, because at Auburn you won't be able to play two sports *ahem* Auburn commit & two sport star QB Jeremy Johnson.

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[Godfather]

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was his name-o