RICHIE Adams was one of the best college basketball players I have ever seen. Richie Adams never
really left Bronx zooAt 6-foot-9, the former UNLV forward could jump through the roof. He had soft hands with a nice jumper, but could also drive to the basket and dunk with strength.
On defense, he played hard in the Rebels' physically demanding man-to-man pressure and used his long arms to full advantage, tipping away passes and blocking shots in flurries.
I covered the UNLV basketball team back in the program's glory days, when the NCAA was lurking, but not completely holding head coach Jerry Tarkanian and his staff hostage. The early and mid-1980s was a fun time to cover one of the most exciting college sports teams in the nation.
Adams was a great success story back then, a star in the electric atmosphere of the sold-out Thomas and Mack Center. "Richie," as he was simply known, was as funny and personable off the court as he was intense while on it.
He loved children and regularly brought them to practice or took them out for ice cream. They waited in line for his autograph, back before it was a commercialized practice, and he patiently posed for pictures with them.
At his worst, he was simply a clown. I remember Adams standing in the baggage claim area at LAX shouting "Claim me! Claim me! Someone claim me!" as he rode around the carousel while his teammates howled in laughter.
Another time, he halted a stern Tarkanian team lecture by palming guard Freddie Banks' freshly shaved head. Even Tark couldn't help cracking up on the spot.
One never would have known that Adams was raised in horribly poor conditions in the Bronx.
A few days ago, I dug out a picture that I kept of Adams. He was wearing a goofy hat that someone had handed him just after the final home game of the season.
ADAMS, now 33, was recently charged with the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl in New York City. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Police found a size 13-1/2 Adidas gym shoe near the murder scene and the girl's relatives said that Adams had been stalking her in the housing project where they both lived.
Every time Adams went back to New York City, he got into trouble.
After being the PCAA Player of the Year as a junior and senior, Adams was drafted by the Washington Bullets in the fourth round in 1985. Tark begged him to stay in Las Vegas, but he returned to the Bronx and was arrested one day after the draft for stealing a car.
The Bullets never invited him to training camp after the arrest, but he escaped the streets long enough to play pro ball in South America. Yet, he always returned to the New York City playgrounds and soon a cocaine habit led to several theft-related arrests and a five-year prison term. He was paroled in 1994.
This isn't a plea to feel sorry for someone gone bad - especially a young man who had several chances for success in life. And the real victim is the poor 14-year-old girl.
But it also shows how most of us don't realize how hard it is to escape the tough inner-city streets - or the habits they can spawn.
The picture I have of Adams shows a man-child who could play basketball and had a wonderful flair for making people of all ages smile.
Now, however, the photo is a haunting one. It fills me with a deep sense of sadness and leaves an unanswered question: How can the story of someone with such a good heart, with so much potential on and off the basketball court, turn into such a tragedy?
Perhaps the answer lies in the streets of the New York City ghetto where Richie Adams was raised - and could never fully escape.
In the same streets where horror and violence are never out of bounds.