Nicholas Clarke

Sev­en-time na­tion­al ten­nis cham­pi­on and for­mer Davis Cup cap­tain Orville Adams was in­duct­ed in­to the Short­er Uni­ver­si­ty Ath­let­ic De­part­ment's Hall of Fame dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Uni­ver­si­ty's Winthrop-King Cen­tre in Rome, Geor­gia, USA re­cent­ly. Adams, 50, was one of ten in­ductees in­to the Class of 2011, which brought Short­er's to­tal num­ber of Hall of Famers to 41."I'm quite ex­cit­ed to be en­shrined in­to Short­er Uni­ver­si­ty De­part­ment of Ath­let­ics' Hall of Fame class of 2011," he said. "It is an ho­n­our, priv­i­lege, and a bless­ing to be in­duct­ed with this class of ath­letes with high ath­let­ic ex­cel­lence."

Cur­rent­ly in his fifth year as men's and women's ten­nis coach at Short­er, Adams was a for­mer as­so­ciate head coach and play­er un­der the guid­ance of Hall of Fame coach Walt At­t­away, the win­ningest coach in NA­IA ten­nis his­to­ry. He lat­er start­ed the uni­ver­si­ty's women's soc­cer pro­gram and served as its head coach from 2001-2005.

Adams al­so served as the as­sis­tant men's and women's ten­nis coach at Short­er from 1994-1997. In June, 1997, he was hired by the In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion as the co­or­di­na­tor of the school ini­tia­tive ten­nis pro­gramme in T&T. Sub­se­quent­ly, in 1998, he formed the Adams Ten­nis Acad­e­my (ATA) which lat­er merged with the PSA Ten­nis Acad­e­my. As the co­or­di­na­tor of the com­pet­i­tive ju­nior ten­nis pro­grams, he was able to iden­ti­fy ten­nis schol­ar­ships for sev­er­al top ju­nior play­ers on the is­lands to at­tend col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in the Unit­ed States. Adams al­so served as the cap­tain and coach of the T&T Davis Cup team in the late 1990s. Dur­ing his tenure as Davis Cup cap­tain, the T&T Davis Cup team gained con­sec­u­tive pro­mo­tions each year of com­pe­ti­tion from Amer­i­can Group IV to the Amer­i­can Group II lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion.

As a play­er, Adams let­tered at Short­er in all four of his years in ten­nis and earned a dou­ble Bach­e­lor of Arts de­gree in pub­lic re­la­tions and recre­ation pub­lic re­la­tions in 1994. Dur­ing his years on the Hill, he was named to the NA­IA All-Amer­i­can team three times, gar­nered All-GI­AC/NA­IA Dis­trict 25 ac­co­lades four times and earned a na­tion­al sin­gles rank­ing of No 5. In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, Adams rep­re­sent­ed T&T in Davis Cup com­pe­ti­tion for six years, was rat­ed as one of the top Caribbean play­ers from 1985-88, par­tic­i­pat­ed in satel­lite tour­na­ments and com­pet­ed in the World Po­lice and Fire Games in 1985 in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia, and again in 1987 in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, where he won bronze and sil­ver medals, re­spec­tive­ly.