2014 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class: Flozell Adams
9/17/2014 12:00:00 AM | General
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist | @GrinzOnGreen
Flozell Adams never intended to be an absentee Spartan. After leaving Michigan State in 1998, he wanted to be an active participant, occasionally partaking in the events and trips that alums use to maintain their bond with alma mater.
But, a little thing called a 13-year All-Pro National Football League career, first and foremost with the Dallas Cowboys, got in the way. Adams returned for the annual MSU football alumni golf outing every spring he could, but it just wasn't the same.
"When I was playing for Dallas, it was just hard to come back, to be able to visit or even see some of the people you knew during you're time at Michigan State," Adams said from his home in Texas. "I spoke with former teammates, because we always talk from time to time, but I could never get back for a game, or Homecoming.
"But I always said, whenever I was done (with the NFL), I was going to go back and start recommitting myself to MSU and I would be coming up for games every year."
While the Bellwood, Illinois, native was preoccupied with the pros - he spent his first 12 seasons with the Cowboys, who took him in the second round of the draft, and his last with the Pittsburgh Steelers - his legend at Michigan State quietly grew.
It's not easy for an offensive lineman to attain hall-of-fame status because his achievements are obscured by an obtuse language - pancakes, de-cleaters, chop-blocks? - and appreciated primarily by an equally anonymous position coach (and occasionally attentive quarterbacks and running backs).
However, Adams' next visit to campus will be as one of the newest members of the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame because of the easy-to-understand statistical record he helped write.
Spartan running backs rushed for 100-plus yards a school-record 21 times in 35 games started by Adams, beginning with his redshirt sophomore season as the right tackle in 1995. The following year, Adams earned second-team All-Big Ten honors by leading the way for Sedrick Irvin to gain 1,067 yards, for MSU to rush for more than 200 yards in eight games and for the Spartans to finish second in the Big Ten in total offense with 399.6 yards per game.
Adams moved to the critical left tackle position as a senior in '97, and flourished on a feast of 37 pancake blocks. Michigan State averaged 199.5 yards per game on the ground and the running backs combined for seven 100-yard rushing games, two of which came against Penn State's vaunted defense in the regular season finale at Spartan Stadium.
Irvin rushed for 238 yards and Marc Renaud added 203 off blocks set by Adams & Co. against the No. 4 Nittany Lions in the stunning 49-14 victory.
"It was my last game in Spartan Stadium and we just kicked their butts," Adams said. "I remember those guys were scratching their heads on the sideline at the end of second quarter wondering what train was running over them.
"We just kept going on and on, and piling up those yards, and just beat `em. That's one of my most memorable games."
Adams represented MSU's offensive line that season with first-team All-America and All-Big Ten accolades and Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year status. He also was a semifinalist for both the Outland Trophy and the Lombardi Award.
There was no drop-off for Adams once he reached the NFL. He played in five Pro Bowls, started for the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV and was ranked among the Top 50 Cowboys players of all time.
But now that Adams has time to reflect on his football career, he's relishing the opportunity to renew ties with Michigan State.
"That's where you grew up to be a man," he said. "You're out of high school but it's not like you've been exactly thrown to the wolves by having to enter the job market or anything like that. You went to school to get an education and to play football.
"You slowly matured over the years at Michigan State, and those are the years I really, really cherish. You grew to adore a lot of people you met there - former players, teachers and even coaches - though you probably didn't tell them that at the time."
Last spring, Adams underscored his affection and appreciation for MSU with a $1.5 million donation toward the North End Zone Project at Spartan Stadium. The money was earmarked for a new, state-of-the-art locker room named in honor of his mother, Rachel Adams, who died in 1996.
 | "There's just an environment at Michigan State that I always liked, and I can appreciate it even more now." -Flozell Adams |
Seventeen years later, Adams' popularity in East Lansing is has high as it's ever been.
"I'm really enjoying it," he said. "A lot of people I knew there aren't kids anymore, they're adults. You can be on the same page with a lot of the people who were there when you were, but not part of the team. You can talk to them about anything or anybody. It's like newfound respect, a hey-I'm-not-a-kid-anymore type thing.
"There's just an environment at Michigan State that I always liked, and I can appreciate it even more now. The older you get you can see what other people were teaching you and probably didn't believe because you thought you knew everything."
Adams learned even more about MSU from his time in NFL locker rooms where players from across the country are coming and going on a regular basis.
"You'd hear stories from other players, from other teams, who went to major schools," Adams said. "There was always something about Michigan State that stuck to you whether you were rich or poor, or came from any ethnic background, because you were always treated like same person there."
The Spartans achieved a moderately successful 19-16-1 record in Adams' final three seasons. They had a winning Big Ten mark each year and played in three straight bowl games, though each ended in defeat. And yet, the emotional connection to MSU has never been stronger for someone considered one of the best two or three linemen in Dallas Cowboys history.
"In the pros, it is more of a business and there's more of a separation between players," Adams said. "You can come together as a team and do everything you need to do to be successful, but it's just not the same as it is on the Michigan State level.
"We were brothers-in-arms. No matter what background you came from, the color of your skin, how big or how smart, no matter what we did, we were all one. So we fought for each other, we'd get knocked down together and we'd get up together. That's the type of stuff we did when I was at Michigan State. I call it like it is, and it seemed like we lost that a little bit after I had left. I'm not pointing any fingers; it just happens."
Newly acknowledged as one of the greatest Spartan athletes of all time, Adams is living vicariously through the new generation of MSU football player under head coach Mark Dantonio.
"From what I've seen over the last six, seven, eight years with Coach Dantonio, he's brought that attitude back," Adams said. "Certainly, a lot of Spartans I know down here and in Chicago, and former teammates, are loving the way he's bringing the Michigan State gridiron back."
It doesn't hurt to have Adams still throwing some blocks along the way.