The Adams Family honours coach

A bleachers full of former players and assistant coaches gathered Friday afternoon on the St. Catharines Collegiate football field to honour former football coach Bob Adams.

Adams, who was presented with a plaque, a whistle and a clock, was humbled by the recognition from his extended football family.

“I didn’t expect this, I don’t expect it and I felt kind of awkward coming back for this, to tell you the truth,” he said after the ceremony, which followed a game between the Collegiate Saints and the visiting Governor Simcoe Redcoats.

Adams began coaching football at Collegiate in 1969, starting with the junior team for three years before moving up to the senior level. He would coach football and rowing at the St. Catharines high school until he retired in 1998.

Adams was a successful coach, but wins, losses and championships weren’t his motive for coaching.

“I never kept track, but I know I had three or four or so,” he said. “What was important was the kids. They busted their humps and I tried to encourage them to be what they could be.”

That was his main goal.

“They always tried and that was my message — try and do your best,” he said. “Those kids meant the world to me.”

Former player and assistant coach George Kalagian, who went on to have a long high school football coaching career of his own, couldn’t say enough about the man he considered his coaching mentor.

“He’s the best coach I ever had,” Kalagian said. “He coached me and he was nice enough to let me come back and coach with him.”

Kalagian learned many lessons from Adams.

“He taught me how to be fair with the players more that anything else,” he said. “He taught me how to get along better with the other coaches, he taught me how to prepare properly and he taught me how to be respectful.”

Being fair was the most important lesson of all.

“He was fair when it came to discipline and fair when it came to communicating with you and teaching how to explain something new that possibly you weren’t doing right.

“Others might have been more critical of you, but his approach was, he tried to nurture you, make you better and he did in all in a silent way by leading and just being there.

“He was a great man.”

In accepting the various gifts from the Collegiate football program, Adams thanked everyone at the school for making his coaching career enjoyable.

“I liked to thank all the staff and the kids that stayed on — and some of them became coaches,” he said. “Without them, I couldn’t have done this. It makes all the difference in the world when you are doing the thing you love to do in a place that you think is so great.

“That’s what I thought of the Collegiate, the staff and the students.”

Adams also thanked Art Wing.

“He was the guy that made me department head way back when.”

Present Collegiate football coach Nathan Greene generated a lot of interest on Facebook when he posted about the team honouring Adams.

“Prior to this weekend, the most anything I wrote on Facebook was shared seven times,” Greene wrote. “My Bob Adams event post was shared 70-plus times.”

Several of his former players posted their thoughts about Adams on Facebook.

“Bob coached me in rowing and football in the late ‘60s early ‘70s,” Jim Dover wrote. “He set me on the right track and I owe a lot to him.”