Adams channeling deep faith as he pursues college football
Robbinsville – For now, Cuttler Adams is back within the friendly borders of home.
For now.
Amazingly, just two next-level institutions have expressed a desire to bring aboard Robbinsville’s top running back – and both could not be further apart, both in geography and personality: Catawba College and Yale University.
Adams has already made a career out of his offseason work, attending camps, combines and conversing with 28 different universities to get his brand out there. His resume speaks for itself: 4,694 rushing yards for the rising Black Knights senior (just 1,470 behind the school and Smoky Mountain Conference all-time record holder, Rylee Anderson). He is perhaps the most solid 5-foot-11, 192-pound prospect out there and turned a lot of heads when he turned in back-to-back performances of 4.42 and 4.52 seconds in the 40-yard dash at The Citadel.
While others might be sitting at home and enjoy the two-month absence between school years, Adams has been on the road. Soon enough, Robbinsville will begin its next journey toward a state championship and it will be Adams’ last time suiting up as a Knight. Plenty of schools have their eye on the Atoah native, so this could also be Adams’ last full summer spent in Graham County for quite some time.
“We’ve had some stuff thrown at us already, like the thought that we may not get to play here,” Adams pointed out. “But our community is the best ever. We’re so blessed where we live. Our team is really talented this year. We’ve got some hard workers; we’ve just got to come together as a team. We’ve got the talent; we’ve got strong kids; we’ve just got to come together as one and go play Black Knight football.
“Our biggest goal is to bring a state championship home.”
You would need a ball of red twine and a map of the Eastern United States to plot all of his stops on the summer tour, which started right after his junior year of track & field (where he placed fifth in the state in the 100-meter dash; eighth in the long jump) came to a close.
In fact, the destinations all run together to the point that Adams has to keep an app on his phone to remind him of all the points on his recent journey.
“It’s the best of the best,” said Adams of the competition he has faced. “It’s helped me to run my routes better, with some of the best coaches in the nation helping me improve on running those. Plus, I still go to the high school and work on my routes twice a day.”
His first appearance was at the Blue/Grey All-American combine in Greensboro on May 20; he followed that with a tryout for the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas; camps at the University of Tennessee, Old Dominion, Kennesaw State University, The Citadel and Yale.
He rounded out the whirlwind run with another visit to the Shrine Bowl ranks – this time to strut his stuff at a combine.
“Meeting coaches and players along the line that I might get to play with one day,” Adams said, when asked about his takeaways from the summer. “I met some kids at the Shrine Bowl that are committed to Alabama. They told me, ‘Hey, we’ve heard about you. You’re the running back from Robbinsville.’
“Desmond Jackson is committed to UNC right now and he told me, ‘You keep working hard and I’ll be seeing you again, either on TV or I’ll be playing against you.’ That made me feel like all the hard work is paying off.”
The biggest draw for attention in today’s society is social media – and recruitment for collegiate athletics utilizes that in a maximum capacity. Adams has announced his offers on Twitter and made sure to keep game highlights updated through Hudl – all told, 28 colleges have made contact.
But when it comes to giving credit where credit is due, Adams stays true to what brought him to the dance.
“Most of all, the Lord has put my name out there and rewarded my hard work,” Adams declared. “You keep Him first and you’ll get your name out there when the coaches can’t.”