NEW ORLEANS — Google the name Joe Adams and you get some interesting hits.
There was the Joe Adams, the man behind Ray Charles. There was a Joseph Adams who was a private investigator and mercenary, a different Adams was a physician and another had been endorsed for a state election.
Take them and roll them all together and you might come up with Joe Adams, No. 3 in your Arkansas Razorbacks football program but No. 1 when it comes to pound-for-pound toughness and determination.
He’s instant excitement as a receiver and a punt returner.
This season he has 41 catches for 693 yards and 5 touchdowns, and he was fourth in the nation in punt return average at 17.9 yards per attempt.
He took one to the house after two moves that covered 97 yards against Ole Miss.
Not once, but twice, he almost wasn’t a Razorback.
The second time, most significant, came last October when a nagging headache caused coaches and trainers to send him for an MRI that revealed Adams had suffered a stroke.
The picture of health was held out of three games as more tests were run.
“I wasn’t too worried about it,” he said. “My mom, though, she was freaking out. She was really scared.”
Turned out Adams had a chemical imbalance and the stroke was not structural. There was no physical damage.
Today Adams takes vitamins and half an aspirin daily, and he’s good to go, but not without learning something.
“I don’t take football for granted,” he said. “I missed the game and practices, but I missed my teammates the most. I missed being part of the team. I hated that part of it.”
Along with his teammates, Adams is here for Tuesday night’s Sugar Bowl game against Ohio State.
He, like his teammates, is not boasting or roasting, but there is a quiet confidence about Arkansas’ approach to this game.
One of the trap questions being asked of the Razorbacks by the Ohio media was about the fastest team Arkansas had played this season; none of the Hogs or coaches took the bait.
Adams did say, “LSU, that was a statement win for us.”
There has been an argument around football since Joe Paterno was in short pants that the Big 10 is big and slow and the SEC is fast; more than one Big Ten teamhas used that statement as a motivational tool.
It will not be bulletin board material for the Buckeyes.
The first time Adams was almost not a Hog was his senior season at Central Arkansas Christian when he committed to play football at Southern Cal.
As a receiver, Adams wanted to play in a pro-style offense where passing was important.
Almost as soon as the former Arkansas head football coach crossed the Mississippi River, UA assistant Tim Horton, who later became recruiting coordinator, was calling Adams asking him to hold on.
Adams was one of the first people Bobby Petrino and Horton called on and the young man was impressed enough to take a chance.
“I knew from coach’s days at Louisville he liked to air it out,” Adams said. “That he liked to put points on the board.”
So he committed to the Hogs and he hasn’t looked back.
“I know USC has some issues, but I don’t really pay attention to it,” he said. “I’m 100 percent Razorback and that’s where my focus is.”
And that focus today is centered on the Buckeyes of Ohio State.
Sports, Pages 13 on 01/03/2011