Tom Adams enshrined in Missouri Sports Hall of Fame

Thank heavens for second impressions and public parks. They paved the way to greatness for Springfield’s Tom Adams.

Adams was one of eight people inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Feb. 26 at the inaugural Outdoor Sports Luncheon. The event drew some 450 guests to the DoubleTree Hotel.

It was definitely not love at first sight for Adams when it came to tennis, who was introduced to the game by his family.

“My brother had a tennis racket and encouraged me to take lessons,” Adams told the Hall of Fame’s Kary Booher. “There were 52 people and I got to hit only two or three balls. I didn’t like it.”

That all changed when some new construction brought the game closer to home and gave Adams and a group of friends a place to play.

“The city built Phelps Grove Park tennis courts before the end of my eighth-grade year, and I grew up nearby on Portland Street,” Adams said. “Since (my friends) liked it, I thought I’d give it another try. I found out that I was good at it, and I think I got to where I was beating all the guys.”

Adams found great mentors in people like Doc Busiek, Charlie Harman, Roger Holstein and Gerald Perry. They would scrape the snow off Busiek’s courts in the winter so they could, cold weather be darned.

“One day it was 18 degrees, and we put a trash can by the courts and started a fire to keep the tennis balls warm so they would bounce,” Adams said. “We played for two or three hours.”

Adams developed a powerful serve and a great volley. Those skills helped the 1966 Parkview High School graduate earn a scholarship to Missouri State University.

Those skills also helped him become one of the best players in program history. He earned varsity letters at MSU from 1966-69 and went 51-9 in singles play and 49-11 in doubles. Adams won a Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Association championship in No. 1 singles and was runner-up in his three other seasons. Adams teamed up with Dave Hart to win an MIAA doubles title as well as two runner-up finishes.

In 1971 he was asked to start a tennis program at Hickory Hills Country Club. With Adams as the tennis pro, the program from two courts to four and the club held nightly league matches.

Coaching became a big part of Adams’ life in that decade. He assisted coach Charlie Spoonhour with the MSU program, then coached the men’s team from 1975-77. Those Bears teams achieved high levels of success. MSU won the MIAA league title, its first in 18 seasons, in 1976. The Bears were runners-up in 1975 and 1977.

A hand injury forced Adams away from the game in the early 1980s, but he couldn’t stay away forever. He returned to Springfield in the late 1990s and was hired by the Springfield-Greene County Park Board. His job title? General Manager of the Springfield Lasers, a World TeamTennis franchise.

“Mr. Laser,” as he became known, helped bring some of the game’s biggest stars to the Cooper Tennis Complex. He retired in 2012 after 14 seasons at the helm.

Adams joins his sister Jodie Adams in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. A talented player in her own right, she was inducted as an administrator in 2004 and earned the President’s Award in 2017 for her work with the Springfield-Greene County Park Board.

Other Tennis Hall of Famers in Missouri:

Five other individuals and two tennis programs have also been inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

• Sallie Beard (2017), administrator, Missouri Southern State University

• John Bryant (2010), coach, Southwest Baptist University

• Earl “Butch” Bucholz (1995), player

• Dwight Davis (1963), player

• Ben Loeb (2015), coach

• Rock Bridge High School Tennis Program (2019)

• Springfield-Greene County Park Board Program (2018)