Former Bradley star Adams-Birch continues following her calling to coach

Jody Adams-Birch never stopped coaching, because she knew it was her calling.

The former Bradley Central star had been successful as a college head coach before - she remains the only coach to take Wichita State to the NCAA tournament - but that tenure had ended unceremoniously in 2017 after 162 wins and three consecutive Missouri Valley Conference championships.

"I'm just so proud of her resiliency," Bradley Central baseball coach Travis Adams, Jody's brother and the youngest of three kids, said recently. "She's overcome some bad situations that could have been handled differently, things outside of her control. But she's stuck, she's stuck through it."

Her resiliency has paid off as she was recently named the head coach at New Mexico State, where she replaces Brooke Atkinson, whose contract wasn't renewed after five seasons. Adams-Birch has an overall record of 185-123, with four NCAA tournament appearances – three at Wichita State, one at Murray State.

Jody and Travis have leaned on each other and that was important in the aftermath of her time at Wichita State. She didn't walk away from the game, instead becoming an assistant coach at a Kansas high school and helping that team to its first-ever state championship before returning to the college ranks as an assistant at Southern Illinois in charge of player development.

"We're probably each other's biggest fans," Adams-Birch said of her relationship with Travis. "Being a big sister, he learns a lot from me through the good, the bad, the ugly. I feel like I'm a pretty blessed woman because there's such treasures in my life. Holly (her younger sister), my mom and dad. There's nothing I would change about any of it, and I'm where I'm supposed to be, and I'm fortunate to have a husband (Roy) that supports that."

It's also in her family DNA. Aside from her brother being a head coach, her father Joe was a baseball coach at Cookeville, McMinn County and Bradley Central, winning 474 games and finishing state runners-up three times. He was inducted into the Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.

She also played for the legendary Pat Summitt, so resiliency is part of who she is because of the coaching that was instilled in her, from Summitt (1,098 career wins and eight NCAA championships) and high school coach Jim Smiddy, who won 1,217 games in his career.

"He has taught me the roles as a teacher, as a leader," Adams-Birch said last week of her father. "It's understanding your heart and what drives your heart, because what the heart values is obviously going to become the behavior that follows it, so being around excellence, starting with my grandparents and my mother, the legend Pat Summitt. So it's what empowers winning? A lot of people can talk about culture, what drives it or what's written on the wall, but does their heart emulate that? Are they believing that?"

She becomes the sixth former Lady Vol currently serving as a head coach, joining Kellie Harper (Tennessee), Kyra Elzy (Kentucky), Kara Lawson (Duke), Shalon Pillow (Florida A&M) and Tanya Haave (Metropolitan State).

"Where Pat left her legacy, or our legacy, is the impact that we've made on people," Adams-Birch said. "So when we talk about legacies, it's not about the trophies, it's not the banners, it's not the rings that obviously as a competitor we want. But as a leader it's how you've impacted somebody's heart, how you've helped them along the way.

"No doubt she made a huge impact on my life. I'm just so blessed it started at home."

For Adams-Birch, it's not about accepting a new job but just continuing to be who she is.

"Look at how I responded from that (Wichita State separation)," Adams-Birch said. "Because it wasn't all about being a head coach, it's about getting to do what I do as a mentor, and helping kids, empowering women or what's next in their future. So that was an event and obviously there's going to be a response and I hope that people look at my response if that says anything, and now you're seeing the outcome of what my response was.

"When your heart is in the right posture, and you have the mindset of growth - we all want to get better - then good things happen. So it's been an amazing journey for me."

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.

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