Tommy Bowden was getting out of church Sunday morning when he received several text messages informing him, "Gaines Adams has died.''
Like so many others who heard about the death of the Bears' 26-year-old defensive end, Bowden thought it had to be some mistake. This couldn't be the same guy he coached at Clemson.
"It was a total shock when I found out,'' Bowden said on the phone. "I thought maybe it was his father, who has the same name, or somebody else by mistake. I still can't believe it.''
Photo: Gaines Adams with Clemson in 2005. (Streeter Lecka / Getty Images)
Bowden recalled a player who led by example without complaint.
"As a coach you're always looking for players who don't bitch and complain and Gaines just never did,'' Bowden said. "He would show up every day with a smile on his face ready to work. It didn't matter if we were hitting with pads or how long practice would go, he wouldn't complain.''
The work ethic and attitude appealed to Bowden during the recruiting process when he got to know the Adams family in Greenwood, S.C. Bowden remembered how Gaines Adams III occasionally would go to Clemson and proudly watch practice from a nearby hill.
Asked to summarize Adams' personality in one word, Bowden chose "patience.''
"He had to wait for everything,'' Bowden said. "Gaines didn't qualify academically coming out of high school so he had to go to a prep school, then we red-shirted him. I can remember sitting with his parents in my office for an hour when he was deciding whether to come out [in 2006] or not and I laid out all the information. He might have gone in the first round, maybe not. But he decided to come back, stay in school and graduate as a four-year player. It all was worth it. That was an example of the type of patience he had. He was one of those players you held up as an example.''
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