Topic: News: Former Weightlifter Robert McAdams Attacks Football

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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With New Offense, Pioneers Are Turning Back The Clock

GENTRY — No sooner did high school football lose a book author (who happens to coach ) when another one comes around to take his place.

Only Robert McAdams’ book is 180-degrees different than “ The Hurry-Up, No Huddle: An Offensive Philosophy, ” by Gus Malzahn.

McAdams is the offensive coordinator at Gentry, hired by head coach Jeff Stewart this summer to torment defenses beginning Sept. 1 at Pea Ridge.

The OC has two books to his credit:

“ The Double-Wing Football Offense: How to consistently move the chains and score without superior athletes and / or size, ” and

“ The Gap Man Pressure Defense: How to consistently stop the run and pressure the pass without superior athletes and / or size. ”

Guess what Gentry’s bringing to Pea Ridge the week after next ?

That’s right, the double- and single-wing offense. Go ask your granddad about the single-wing. Get ready to hear football terms like:

Single-wing buck, singlewing motion spin, doublewing, buck seam, buck lateral, buck pass, buck special, double-wing (DW ) power, DW counter, DW sweep, singlewing wedge and single-wing wedge sweep.

Oh, your granddad’s younger than 65 ? No help there. Most teams moved onto the Wing-T set by 1940.

McAdams, a fireball of energy who’s got Pioneer players thinking they’re the “ Little Engine That Could, ” has a video explaining it all on his Web site, www. robertwmcadams. com.

Better bookmark it, Blackhawks.

“ I really don’t promote the Web site or the books to players much, ” says the coach. “ Being a younger guy I don’t want to come off as being a know-it-all. ”

McAdams arrived in Gentry by way of Arkansas, Texas and most recently Estill County in eastern Kentucky.

“ My goal is to help kids, ” he says of his books and Web site. “ If I can write a book that will help coaches help kids, then I’m going to do it. I enjoy helping coaches get kids fired up. ”

Translation: Winning high school football games, or at least competing well.

McAdams wrote the books while living in a desolate area of Kentucky. He learned about the winged offenses out of necessity.

The offense is “ personnel dependent. ”

“ We’ve taken it and gone through step by step with our guys, ” he says. “ The kids are starting to get their timing down. This is a real timingoriented offense. ”

He’s adjusted their blocking schemes and players also are now getting that part down.

“ They’ve run the singlewing here before, ” he says. “ The blocking’s quite a bit different than they’re used to and a little more precise with the things they’re doing in the backfield. It’s new to them. ”

He learned the double-wing while coaching junior high in Texas. It was a success but not very well liked by the “ with-it” chic Texans. He moved to Kentucky because he wanted to be in a double-wing offense.

They went 0-10 their first year. They installed the singlewing the second year.

“ We tried running it against this strong playoff team, ” he says. “ We put about 300 yards rushing on them. We should have won it; we lost the game 48-28. ”

They had been scoring a single touchdown a game.

“ Our defense just couldn’t hold them more than a play. ”

One of the clips on his Web site is of a 60-yard run against the Kentucky state champions.

“ They came to Estill County with a squad of 95, ” McAdams says. “ We had 26 kids and ran a touchdown on like the fourth play. We were leading for about one play until they came out on offense. ”

He was sold that teams could be effective with this offense, invented in the early 1900 s.

“ Defensive coaches in this age are used to spread football, ” he says. “ Four wide receivers and we’re going to pass — vertical set our linemen and having our linemen run backwards, trying to keep you off the quarterback. ”

There’s nothing wrong with that, he says.

“ You just have to have a quarterback that can throw and four or five receivers that can catch real well, ” he says. “ We don’t have a lot of those people (at Gentry ). ”

What he does have are a lot of small kids who have become infected with his two passions — football and weightlifting.

McAdams went to school at Midwestern State University at Wichita Falls, Texas. He lifted weights. He spent four years lifting for the U. S. Olympic team. He was ranked 21 st in his weight division and went to the 2004 trials.

“ I snatched 319 pounds and cleaned 393 three times but could not jerk any of the lifts, ” he says. “ I get fired up for weightlifting as much as I do two-a-days. I lose my voice weightlifting as much as I do anything else. ”

He was on the cusp of taking a job this summer with a spread passing team in Kentucky before he learned from a friend at Prairie Grove about the opening here.

“ I almost sealed the deal with them, ” he says. “ I called him and he said: ‘ Gentry’s looking for a coach. Their coach is a good guy. He ran some single-wing. He might be down to doing some of the stuff you want to do. ’ ” Gentry’s administrators, he says, liked his Marine Corps background. “ It’s a good opportunity here, ” he says. “ We’re looking to improve from 3-7 last year. We’re young, a few seniors starting. ” And a whole lot of mystery swirling about this Glen “ Pop” Warner offense.