Q&A with Ernie Adams, The Ex-NFL Staffer Returning to Coach at Alma Mater

Adams graduated from Phillips Academy-Andover in 1971

Ernie Adams, pictured here as the New England Patriots director of football research, watches the Miami Dolphins during warm-ups prior to their game at Gillette Stadium. Adams is taking over as the interim head coach at Phillips Academy-Andover, his high school alma mater. / Winslow Townson-Imagn Images

Ernie Adams has held either a coaching or staff position in the NFL for nearly 50 years.

During that time, Adams has had two stints with the New England Patriots – one from 1975-78 and the other between 2000-21 – and also had stops with the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns.

The second stint with the Patriots had Adams as the team’s football research director. Under former head coach Bill Belichick, who is now at UNC, Adams received six Super Bowl rings.

Adams has been out of the NFL for almost five years. But now, his coaching experience is taking him back to his alma mater at Phillips Academy-Andover in Massachusetts.

A 1971 graduate of Andover who was in the same class as Belichick, Adams takes over as interim head coach for the Big Blue. It’ll also be Adams’ first time leading a team.

“The Phillips Andover experience was formative for him,” said Lisa Joel, the Big Blue’s athletic director via the Boston Globe. “He’s all in. He loves the school, he loves the game of football, and he understands what it means to be an Andover student. He’s a team guy. And he’s incredibly humble and understated.”

Last season, Andover went 2-7 as a member of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC).

High School On SI chatted with Adams about joining the Big Blue, his time with the program and his plans for the team in the upcoming season:

Q: What made you or what was the reason for coming on as Andover’s interim head coach, and why now?

A: My relationship with Andover started about six decades ago. I went to school there for four years. You know, I retired from the Patriots in 2021, but Andover has always been a special place for me. It's a fantastic place, but I’m totally prejudiced. I think it's the world's premier high school, largely because we've got an unbelievable group of young people to work with. I've been helping them out the last couple of years, so this situation kind of came out of the blue. I'm delighted and honored to be able to do it.

Q: Were you on the coaching staff in those previous years?

A: I've kind of helped out. This last year, just before the season started, they had an opening and needed somebody to coach the linebackers. So last year, I was coaching the linebackers.”

Q: You’ve spent a great deal of time in the NFL. Do you plan on bringing any NFL coaches or players onto your staff for the year?

A: No. When I’m coaching a player on a technique, maybe exactly the way I'd coach an NFL player, it’s not going to be some NFL operation. We’re a prep school. Our job is not winning, our job is teaching.

Q: What's it like going back to your alma mater to coach?

A: Since I've been there the last couple years, I know all of our current players. They’re a great group to work with and I enjoy it every day. This is a boarding school and I basically grew up on that campus, so it feels in a lot of ways like home to me.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your time at Andover and your playing days.

A: It was a wonderful experience. It’s an intense academic environment. At 16 years old, I was under a lot of academic pressure, but I made a lot of great friends. We had an undefeated team my senior year. I developed a really good friendship with one of the guys at the school, which of course you know as Bill Belichick. That’s carried on for 55 years. It’s a great experience with great people and a lot of strong friendships.

Q: With Belichick being a fellow Andover alum, did he reach out to you about coaching the football team?

A: I got a very nice congratulatory note from him. He did a postgraduate year at Andover, and he has told me it’s one of the most important years of his life. It’s the kind of place a lot of people have a strong attachment to. I’ve received a lot of support from alumni all over the country who have a spot in their heart for Andover football.

Q: What position did you play at Andover? What was that senior season like for the program?

A: I was a guard. I was stiff legged, slow and not a very good athlete, but I was a good kid and tried hard. We had a terrific quarterback in Milt Holt who led Harvard to an Ivy League championship. For that 1970 high school season, we were pretty good.

Q: What are your plans for Andover and your time there as an interim head coach?

A: I'm trying to make sure I’ve got a coaching staff in place. We’ve got exams coming up, so as that is done I’ll sit down with every player on the team. I’ll talk with them and find out what their ambitions are and how they see the world. It’s exactly what you do if you start off as a head coach in college or the NFL. High school is a totally different level than college or the NFL, but the preparation feels 100 yards long. There’s a lot of elements that are common to every level.

Q: How would you best describe your style of coaching, especially as it transitions to the high school level?

A: I’m a teacher first. I am not a yeller or a screamer. We have plenty of times where a player may not execute something correctly, but they don't need a coach in their face chewing them out. They need a coach to explain to them what happened, what they need to do to improve and particularly what to know. With a school like Andover, people come to school here to learn and be taught.

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