Coach Adams with her four "gold balls."
Photo credit: Paula Markowitz Wittlin
Adams Goes Out a Champ
Retires as WPHS Girl's Hoops Coach After Four Straight Sectional Titles
By: Lucas Remedios
Published: July 10, 2008
Sue Adams is a teacher, a mentor, and most importantly, she recently decided, a mother.
Adams coached the White Plains High School varsity girl’s basketball team for seven seasons, guiding them to four consecutive sectional championships and two state finals appearances.
This past season’s sectional championship might have been the most rewarding, as the team entered the playoffs with a .500 record. “The first was great, the second was tough because we were expected to win it, the third was really exciting, and this year’s was really amazing,” Adams said in an interview last week. “It was tough in a lot of ways,” she added. “I felt we were starting over in a lot of ways; it was such a rewarding season.”
 Photo credit: Paula Markowitz Wittlin
Adams, a WPHS graduate and basketball standout, had one clear objective when she first stepped in to coach the team: “to make White Plains High School a powerhouse again.”
Before Adams took the helm as head coach, the team could boast of only one sectional championship in their history.
Adams made the decision to leave the team when her older son let it be known that he was going to attend The Hun School in Princeton, N.J. Adams’ daughter Kim, a former star for the Tigers, currently plays Division I basketball at the University of Pennsylvania, and she also has a son in middle school. Watching her kids play sports and spending more time with them in general played a large part in her decision, she said.
In reference to stepping down as head coach, Adams said, “I feel in my heart it was the right decision.” She also spoke about her family’s mixed emotions after learning about the decision and said, “I think they are sad but they enjoyed being part of the success.”
The Search Begins
Adams will be part of the committee that will search for the new coach, saying “we have worked too hard to let this team take a step back because I am stepping down.” One of the most important criteria for being named the next head coach of the Tigers, she said, is being more than just an Xs-and-Os type of coach. “I just want them to be a great role model,” she said, “somebody who is interested in turning them into fine young ladies.” The team will also need to look for another assistant coach as Debbie Flooks, mother of former Tigers star Liz, will also step down. Liz is currently playing Division I basketball at Niagara University.
Debbie Flooks told Adams she would stay on for one more year if Adams decided to stay for another season; she also told Adams that she would step down as well if Adams decided to leave.
Another Tigers assistant coach, Jonathan Joseph, said on Monday he plans to remain a part of the program but is unsure in what capacity since he wants to focus on his own continuing education and work in the classroom. Joseph is an American history and economics teacher at the high school and the head coach of the girl’s junior varsity team. He said he has no plans to put in for the varsity head coaching job, adding that at this point in his career (he’s coached the junior varsity for the past two years and assisted with the varsity for the past three), “it would probably be presumptuous” to think he would be asked to fill Adams’ shoes.
Adams said the search will begin around the beginning of the new school year.
Coach Sue Adams
Photo credit: Paula Markowitz Wittlin
Memories Gained,
Lessons Learned
“The coaching staff and I felt if we gave the kids the basic fundamentals, it would be enough to win,” Adams said of her coaching philosophy. She and her staff decided to run the team with the basics instead of running complex offenses.
Adams recalled when she and Debbie Flooks sat in the County Center and spoke about how nice it would be to win a “gold ball,” as she described it. When asked how it felt to accomplish the feat and win three more times, she simply said “unbelievable.”
And as for the most important thing that Adams can take away from the experience, she said she knows she has helped give some kids the opportunity to go to college that may not have had that opportunity before.
Adams has turned around a “floundering” basketball program and has turned it into a perennial powerhouse, one with great tradition to build on and a team that should never be counted out when play moves to the County Center and the sectional tournament begins, no matter their record.
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