COLORADO SPRINGS — In an eighth-grade P.E. class at Discovery Canyon Campus, Grace Adams joined her classmates in kicking and punting a football for fun. At the time, two years ago, she was known around school as a soccer standout and as the younger sister of the school’s star wrestlers, Nick and Garrett Adams.
As Grace remembers it, the teacher, one of Grace’s favorites, was impressed with her kicking but made it clear with his tone of voice that he was joking when he said: “Wow, Grace, you can punt it pretty far. You should go out for kicking in football!”
At home, she told her father, chiropractor Todd Adams, what the teacher said. Brothers Nick and Garrett listened.
“My dad said, ‘You should try that,’ ” Grace recalled this week. “And Nick goes, ‘Come on, Grace, let’s do it.’ “
She started kicking in the Adams’ yard and at the Discovery Canyon field in north Colorado Springs, near the Air Force Academy. She passed her big brothers’ test and, with her brothers’ prodding, took up football.
“It took a little bit of convincing, but she finally came out,” Nick recalled.
This fall, Grace is handling much of the place-kicking duties for the Discovery Canyon Thunder in the school’s first season of Class 3A football. During the Thunder’s 4-2 start, she is 18-for-20 on extra points and 1-for-2 on field goals. The 15-year-old sophomore also plays soccer for the Colorado Pride club program and for Discovery Canyon.
“I’ve gotten a lot of compliments from people, so I’d like to think I’m a somewhat OK kicker,” she said. “I know I have to work on it. I think I’ve done pretty good for only two years of doing football. It’s fun, I love doing it, but soccer comes first.”
Nick, 18, a member of the school’s first senior class, is the Thunder’s fullback, a strong blocker who also has rushed for 287 yards and two touchdowns. He was a state wrestling champion in Class 2A as a freshman and Class 3A as a junior and is headed for the University of Northern Colorado on a wrestling scholarship.
Younger brother Garrett, 16, is a 155-pound junior guard/linebacker and also a standout wrestler. Todd Adams coaches linebackers as an assistant on the staff of Shawn Mitchell, who laughed when asked how her Thunder teammates handle Grace’s presence.
“When your brothers are Nick and Garrett Adams, nobody is going to say a word,” Mitchell said. “They’re not mean kids, but they’re that respected. Plus, these kids have all grown up together, and the seniors have been in this school together for four years. If anything, I think they’re protective of her at all levels.”
Discovery Canyon is a rare urban public school with kindergarten through grade 12 on one campus. That contributes to a unique atmosphere, and the Adams Family — there, we said it, Uncle Fester — revels in it.
“They’re the best,” Grace said of her teammates. “I love all the guys and the coaches.”
The family specialty remains wrestling, and Todd is a longtime coach in the sport.
“Grace played volleyball, soccer and some basketball growing up,” Todd said.
With a smile, he added: “I tried to get her to wrestle and told her if she didn’t toughen up, I was going to put her in the wrestling room. She never wanted to do that. But she thought this would be kind of fun and interesting. The kids really take good care of her.”
In practice Tuesday, Grace, 5-feet-3 and 127 pounds, was consistently accurate in field-goal attempts from extra-point range to distances up to 35 yards, and she made one of 42 yards. She was successful on her first 18 conversion attempts this season before missing two in the Thunder’s 61-40 victory over Pueblo Centennial last weekend.
Her field goal was a 28-yarder in a 31-0 victory over Woodland Park. She barely missed a 40-yarder in a 29-21 victory over Wasson. She is expected to get her next kicking work against Palmer Ridge on Friday at Monument.
Grace kicked for the junior varsity team as a freshman and got her chance with the varsity this season when senior Alex Roeca had early-season soccer conflicts. Roeca usually handles kickoffs and is ticketed to attempt the longer field goals. Adams does the extra points and shorter field goals for varsity, plus the junior varsity when she doesn’t have Pride soccer conflicts on Saturdays.
“Last year, there were a couple of people at school making fun of me,” Grace said. “They were saying, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Now they’re like, ‘Dude, this girl’s on the team!’ “
Doing the kickoffs at either level can place her in the position of knowing some teams assign a blocker to take out the kicker, mainly hoping to distract him (or her) on subsequent kickoffs.
“We watch out for her, but she can take care of herself too,” said Nick, who suffered a sprained knee in last weekend’s game and hopes to return to the lineup by the end of the season. “There was one time this year when they had a guy who was going to try to knock her down. She sidestepped him about twice, and it was pretty funny.”
Garrett remembered another incident.
“There was one kickoff where a kid came up and blindsided Grace,” he said. “I’m not in the middle on the kickoff, I’m kind of in the back, so I couldn’t get at him. We had one of our friends go down and blast him on the next kickoff.”
Don’t mess with the Adams Family.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
Thunder (4-2) rolls on
Discovery Canyon Campus High School, Colorado Springs
League: South Central (Class 3A)
Next game: vs. Palmer Ridge, at Monument, Friday, 7 p.m.
Leading rushers: Michael Ellsworth, 95 carries, 666 yards, eight touchdowns; Christian Fournier, 59 carries, 474 yards, 5 TDs; Nick Adams, 56 carries, 287 yards, 2TDs; Brady Chambers, 59 carries, 281 yards, 5 TDs.
Passing: Brady Chambers, 9-for-36, 236 yards, 2 TDs.
Leading receiver: Kyle Nachbar, 6 receptions, 154 yards, 0 TDs.
