Hobbton Middle School will have a new athletic director this school season, one who said he is excited to take the help.
Adam Tew was a former coach and athletic director at Gray’s Creek Middle School in Cumberland County before coming to Hobbton.
“When you can come into a school system and take something like what I’m doing right now as athletic director of a school program, there’s a passion in athletics and passion in sports. When that creates an opportunity to minister, influence and change the lives of kids, it’s a home run. It’s the best of everything,” Tew noted, describing how it feels to take over the program.
As a former college basketball player at Methodist University, Tew earned two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III national championships. Over the course of 17 years as head coach at Gray’s Creek, he was able to bring six conference championships home.
For year one, his main focus at Hobbton is to create a culture that prioritizes student success in sports over victories.
“Wins do not equal success,” Tew said. “Success is the quality of whether we are getting better from the beginning until the end, are we teaching the fundamentals, doing the right things to set our kids up for success. That’s what sports brings to each student, each athlete. They’re having to learn to overcome obstacles in their young lives that sports provides. They have the opportunity to work together as a team, to work through adversity. They have to learn respect, that they represent something bigger than themselves. All of those are life-quality lessons that will turn into success when you do them the right way.”
That was his mentality when appointing coaches at Gray’s Creek as well.
“I held my coaches not to a standard of winning, or “we gotta have a championship season, or you’re out of here,” nothing like that,” he explained. “I wanted to hear from my coaches; ‘I don’t even care about the money. I’m doing this because I love it. When I could feel the passion that they had (I realized) that was the same passion that I had, that equaled success. Not only success for the lives of the kids, but we started winning a lot of championships along the way.”
With experience as both a coach and AD, Tew knows the differences that surround both roles.
“Coaching in the school system is like playing a game of cards,” he explained. “You get dealt your hand, and as a quality coach, the coach that you are, you can take that hand … you may have a winning hand, and you could play it poorly. You may have a poor hand that was dealt to you. Then, you may be able to survive that card game and go as far as you can with it. You may have a terrible hand, and you might have to just call out and say “I’m out,” and that’s OK.”
For some, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the wins and losses that come with being a coach.
“If we get captured by our success, and it is equalled to wins and championships over what we’re doing, and how we’re making a difference in these kids’ lives, then we’ve forgotten what we’ve been called to do altogether,” Tew emphasized.
The new Hobbton AD credits his faith for helping him get to where he is today.
”It’s very important to me,” he attested about his faith. “I grew up in a family where faith was crucial for us. I was taught at a young age not only life lessons on how to build and work hard, but I also learned to make sure I was involved with my spiritual faith. Without his leadership, without my faith, you have nothing. So it starts with your faith. Every gift I’ve ever been given, every success and everything that I’ve ever experienced in life, it all came from God giving me the platform and giving me that opportunity.”
As the new Wildcat AD, Tew wants to ensure that Hobbton Middle has the best coaches in place to coach the kids here in the community
“I want to also make sure our facilities are as top-notch as they can be,” he said. “I want people to come to a Hobbton game, whether they’re pulling for Hobbton or they’re the opponent, I want them to say that it’s really nice out here, this looks great. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Hobbton Middle, he said, won’t feel like your standard middle school.
“I’m excited about the starting date, working with the kids and working with my coaches to make sure that we have everything set,” Tew emphasized. “When you come to Hobbton, you’re coming to a place where the environment’s going to feel different. You’re going to feel different there.”