UCLA has been lucky to experience the era of baseball coach Gary
Adams, who is retiring at the end of the season.
Adams epitomizes how a coach should treat his student-athletes,
by emphasizing the student part of that term first. He is a great
teacher, developing his players to the extent that several have
high-profile careers in the major leagues ““ Eric Burns, Jeff
Conine, Troy Glaus, Eric Karros, Tim Leary, Dave Roberts and Todd
Zeile are among the notable students of Adams, with three of them
having won World Series titles.
Unfortunately for Adams, this stellar development did not
necessarily translate into tangible success for the baseball
program, with only one College World Series appearance to his
credit in 30 years of coaching. It is important that Adams’
worth to UCLA athletics is not measured in this regard. Adams
embodies an era of student-athletics where individual development
and growth were prioritized over the immediate gratification of
program wins. As UCLA bids him farewell, Bruins should not forget
the dedication and service that Coach Adams gave to the university,
and particularly to its individual students.