KJ Adams, incredible journey. So proud of the young man

theathletic.com/4152204/2023/02/03/kansas-basketball-kj-adams/

Hope many of you can access this story. KJ and his parents are to be admired. I am so proud of this young man and his family and what he and his mother have overcome. Proud that the KU coaches took him on and gave him a chance. And to his teammates that supported and encouraged his growth. What a story.

For those of you unable to open the file.

"LAWRENCE, Kan. — When KJ Adams moved into McCarthy Hall back in August 2021, his mom, Yvonne, approached Kansas coach Bill Self with one request: “I’m bringing you a great kid,” she said, “but I need you to make him an a—hole.”
It’s mid-December, a year later, when Yvonne sits in the front row at Mizzou Arena, and that mean streak she desired is lacking on the opening possession. Kansas sets up a post pin play for Adams, who pushes Mizzou forward Noah Carter up the lane. Point guard Dajuan Harris feeds him the perfect pass. Adams might have the thickest legs in the country — “He had calves from birth,” Yvonne says — but he doesn’t use them here, barely lifting off the ground as he misses a contested layup.
At the first stoppage, Harris approaches his 6-foot-7 teammate, who’s built like an NFL tight end. “Dunk everything,” he tells him. “Dunk every freaking thing.”
Two minutes later, he feeds Adams on the same play. This time Adams explodes off his feet, scores and draws a foul. In the final four minutes of the first half, he does as he’s told three times, dunking the ball with authority.
Behind the Kansas bench, his parents are there together for the first time all season. Yvonne tries to sit tall so she can see her only son schooling the Tigers. She arrives that day in a wheelchair, the first time she’s had to be wheeled to her seat to watch her son play.
Adams sets a new career high by halftime, scoring 15 points as the Jayhawks race to a 17-point lead. Midway through the second half, his left shoe has had enough — and the sole tears. He throws his white Adidas sneakers to a manager and puts on a backup pair that are much heavier. He scores only four more points as Mizzou adjusts to Kansas’s middle pick-and-roll, but he adds three assists to his stat line.
Adams opened the season scoring in single figures in seven straight games, just trying to blend in. This marks his third consecutive game in double figures, a streak he’d extend to 11 games.
With a couple minutes left, the most improved player in college basketball checks out of the game. Self walks down to where the Adams family sits and yells out for Yvonne, who is distracted. Her husband nudges her, and she looks the coach’s way.
“Aren’t you glad you came?
Every day in elementary school, Adams would hop off the school bus and race to the gym at St. Stephen’s Episcopal to watch his mom coach the varsity girls basketball team. The family lived on the Austin campus, where Yvonne is the director of equity and inclusion. Adams was always in that gym, watching practice, running the scoreboard and getting up shots. He’d eventually practice with the boys team. His parents encouraged him to try all sports — he played lacrosse, football and soccer — but when he was dunking as a seventh grader, it became clear he was destined to follow in his mother’s footst
Yvonne starred at Texas A&M as a sharpshooting guard under her maiden name of Hill, leading the Aggies in scoring as a junior and senior. After college, she passed up opportunities to play overseas to stay close to her mother and returned to Blinn Junior College as a graduate assistant. She lasted only a year — she couldn’t handle investing in a recruit and then hearing no — but the pit stop was worth it. It was where she met Kevin, a running back on the football team.
KJ is the middle of their three children and only boy.
Kevin and Yvonne were a coach’s dream. Early on, she preached fundamentals and the value of passing the ball. But as Adams got older, Yvonne let his coaches coach him and nurtured the intangibles she valued: how he responded to teammates, how he responded when he got a foul and his demeanor on the bench.
“These are way more important than whether or not you can shoot,” she told him.
During one game the summer after his freshman season, Kevin yelled out that KJ needed to get up the court faster and rebound. KJ looked in the stands with some attitude.
“It was dead quiet,” Yvonne says. “And I said, ‘If you ever look this way again like that, I will come down from these bleachers and beat your (butt).’”
Attitude has never been an issue since.
Adams thrived in sports, but academically, he struggled. Yvonne knew there was something off as early as kindergarten, but she came up with excuses. He’s a boy. He has a late birthday.
When Adams was in fourth grade, his school decided to move him to special ed. Yvonne demanded they do some testing first.
The testing revealed Adams is dyslexic.
“From the moment he knew he had dyslexia, you could feel the weight of the academic pressure be lifted,” Yvonne says. “And we were like, ‘OK, this is what it is, this is how you process.’”"

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