ELMHURST, Ill. - Elmhurst College has named Joe Adam as its new head football coach. Adam becomes the 18th head coach in school history, taking over for Tim Lester, who resigned last week to become the quarterbacks coach at Syracuse University.
Adam has spent the last six seasons as an assistant coach with the Bluejays, including the last five years as the team's defensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator. He has also served as the team's assistant head coach.
Adam inherits an Elmhurst team that turned in the College's best-ever season in 2012. The Bluejays won a share of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) championship for the first time since the 1980 season and earned the College's first-ever trip to the NCAA Playoffs. Elmhurst scored an opening-round victory over Coe College and finished the season with a school-record for wins (10-2 overall record). The Bluejays earned a top-10 national ranking in the final season polls from D3football.com and the American Football Coaches Association.
"I'm very excited to lead the Elmhurst football program into uncharted territory," said Adam. "Obviously, the goal is to continue to build upon the success that we obtained last year and see how far we can take it."
Prior to joining the Bluejays' coaching staff in 2007, Adam spent a year at Western Michigan University as a graduate assistant coach under the tutelage of Scott Shafer, the new head coach at Syracuse University. Adam helped Western Michigan to a 7-4 record and their first bowl game in almost 20 years. Adam spent three seasons coaching at Grand Valley State University where he was a part of two NCAA Division II Championship teams in 2003 and 2005. While at Grand Valley State, Adam served one year under Brian Kelly, now head coach at the University of Notre Dame and two seasons under Chuck Martin, now offensive coordinator at the University of Notre Dame.
Adam began his collegiate coaching career at Harper Community College where he served as the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator. During his five years at Harper, the squad made appearances in four junior college bowl games.
"As this is a crucial time in the offseason, we felt that promptness had to play a role in our hiring process so that we could continue moving forward in player retention and recruiting," said Elmhurst Director of Athletics Paul Krohn. "Fortunately, we didn't have to look far to find the right candidate. Joe was the right-hand man of Tim Lester and was highly endorsed by Tim for the job. As the team's recruiting coordinator, Joe was essential at bringing in the players that helped turn our program into a CCIW champion. I had noted in Joe's last performance review that he was going to be an excellent head coach and I'm pleased that it will be here at Elmhurst College. Joe is going to be an excellent fit for our institution and our football program."
Adam knows that maintaining the team's recent success will not come easy, but he is ready for the challenges.
"We had a tremendous season in 2012 and we'll have our work cut out for us next season in replacing the production of 20 seniors, including one of the most prolific running backs in Division III history in Scottie Williams," he said. "We were excited to build a championship program last year, but the real challenge for any coach is building a program that can sustain success. Last year's group of seniors helped change the culture around our program in their four years at the College and they set the bar very high. Our challenge now is to build on that success and raise the bar even higher."
Adam and his wife, Lisa, reside in Chicago with their children, Joe and Jessica.
