by John Walters
What Happened?
This is Phillip Adams, a former NFL defensive back whose unforgettable career will not play a role in the fact that he will forever live in infamy. Yesterday Adams, from South Carolina, reportedly fatally shot a 70 year-old ER physician (Dr. Robert Lesslie), his wife, two of their grandchildren, and a man working at the physician’s home. Adams then returned to his parents’ home, about a mile away in Rock Hill, S.C., and killed himself.
We hadn’t even had time to report that former NFL wideout and Florida State standout Travis Rudolph had shot and killed a man in Florida last weekend. Now this. What happened?
A safety who had played in 78 games, never as a starter, in five NFL seasons, Adams began with the 49ers but also played with New England, Seattle, Oakland and the New York Jets, finishing his career with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015. Just an assumption: He had great physical talent but teams learned quickly that perhaps there was something not quite stable in his emotional or psychological makeup?
Lesslie had treated Adams after an ankle injury that accelerated his NFL demise. He also suffered at least two concussions. Adams was 33.
A Man Corner
If you’re thinking to yourself, Didn’t they just stage a Masters event five months ago?, you are correct. But they’re holding another one. Bring on the pimento & cheese sandwiches. I’m hoping that they also use the driving range as an impromptu vaccination site and it would be dubbed “Masters and Johnson & Johnson.”
The last eight Masters have had eight different winners and you might see a ninth this Sunday as pre-event favorites includes never-won-it types such as Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.
Dustin Johnson (Gretzky), who won last November, is also a favorite. Three-time champion Phil Mickelson, 50, is the Gen X favorite.
Keep Going
Since when did they begin scripting Jeopardy! segments? This could have been an SNL sketch (as if SNL would ever parody Jeopardy!) if Rodgers had simply allowed the contestants to keep guessing (“Native Americans?” “People who paid to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri?”).
From Devin Durrant To Kevin Durant
Last night the former league MVP returned after a near two-month hiatus from injuries and went five-for-five from the field, scoring 17 points, as the New Jersey Nets smothered New Orleans, 139-111.
But it got me to thinking: How many millennials are aware that there was once an NBA player, out of BYU, named Devin Durrant? A 6’7″ forward, Durrant was the 25th overall pick in 1984, a draft that included Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. Durrant only played two unremarkable seasons, but he had started every game of his career in Provo and was a 2nd-team All-American in ’84 (no mean feat, considering those dudes in his draft class).
A Rube Awakening
The value of TikTok: a millennial discovering the sheer awesomeness of dead ball era pitching ace Rube Waddell and memorializing his idiosyncratic ways in song. Thank you.
The New Jersey Nets, or the Brooklyn Nets?