Tech guard Luke Adams can hear you
By Mike Graham / Texas Tech Special Contributor
December 8, 2011
One of the best stories on the 2011-2012 Texas Tech men’s basketball team is
the arrival of Luke Adams, a Big Spring, Texas, basketball star and Red
Raider walk-on.
Adams is deaf save for an effective cochlear implant device and a hearing
aid kept in tact by a sweat band on his head. And it’s never stopped Adams.
A great story was published a year ago about Adams’ early-season
achievements by Evan Ren of the Abilene, Texas, Reporter-News. Adams went on
to win the District 5 3-A Most Valuable Player Award later that season.
In the article, it’s mentioned doctors thought Adams would never get past a
second-grade reading level. Obviously, he did.
Before the season started, Adams told me that sometimes his hearing aid will
pop out with all the motion on the court and coaches at Big Spring would use
hand signs to tell him what play to run.
Adams has had to overcome a lot in his life, but the freshman walk-on got a
real taste of Division I basketball Tuesday at TCU when he played in the
crucial final 11 minutes of a 75-69 Texas Tech loss that saw the Red Raiders
get within two points with less than half a minute to go.
It was a performance that made you wonder why he’s a walk-on rather than a
scholarship athlete.
When Adams was subbed into the game by head coach Billy Gillispie, TCU fans
heckled him not because he was deaf but because he has a haircut similar to
pop star Justin Bieber’s hairdo.
So reports came out making light of the fact that TCU fans were wasting
energy in heckling a guy who couldn’t hear them. But Adams heard them fine
writes Nick Kosmider of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
As Adams’ father, Howard college head basketball coach Mark Adams, told
Kosmider, Luke Adams’ hearing impairment isn’t a sensitive subject — nor is
having Bieber hair.
As Luke Adams has drawn more attention this week for his hairstyle, teammate
teasing has picked up.
Luke Adams wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I can count on one hand the times he’s ever felt like he was different,”
Mark Adams told Kosmider. “He’s just a very strong-willed, confident young
man.”
Source:
http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/12/tech-guard-luke-adams-can-hear-you.html