School: Central Bucks South
Cross Country, Winter Track, Spring Track
Favorite athlete: Reggie Bush
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Making the time to compete in nationals”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “When I was in 11th grade, I fell over the first hurdle in my race and scraped my arms, legs, stomach and shoulder, but the funny thing about it is that I wasn’t even upset about the fact that I fell or the fact that I was bleeding. I was angry because I broke my pink Dior glasses! I was very upset with myself…but on a good note, the next week I qualified for districts.”
Music on iPod: “I have a lot of gospel, R&B, Hip-Hop, and Baltimore club music.”
Future plans: “Go to college and be successful while running college track.”
Words to live by: “Think positive and never give up, even when it looks like you’re going to fail.”
One goal before turning 30: “I hope to be married.”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I sleep with a teddy bear every night, and its name is Puff-a-lup.”
Porscha Adams has this ‘thing’ – as she calls it - about quitting.
She just won’t do it.
“I do not quit,” the Central Bucks South senior said. “I don’t quit.”
Adams is not giving lip service when she makes that declaration, and she’s not saying it because it sounds like the right thing to say. She means it, and she lives it.
A self-made track star, Adams, who has competed at the national level in hurdles, could be the ‘poster child’ for the value of hard work, determination and persistence. Hers is a success story that almost didn’t happen.
Consider only her auspicious track debut when she was a sophomore.
“I threw up the first two days of practice,” Adams said with a laugh. “It was horrible.”
Titan coach Lauren Senske admits she wasn’t sure if she would be seeing much of Adams after that first practice.
“To tell you the truth, I was actually surprised that she came back the next day,” the Titans’ coach said. “We were doing a light workout, and she obviously was a little bit out of shape.”
It was hardly the kind of beginning the middle school star had expected.
“I ran all through middle school, and I was good at the hurdles – in ninth grade, I never lost,” Adams said. “I knew it was going to be hard in high school, but I never knew it was going to be anything like that.
“In my middle school, we didn’t have a track. We just ran around the parking lot, and I didn’t have to run that much. Here, we come out and we’re doing 400s all the way around the track. I was so unprepared mentally, physically – everything.”
Adams is never unprepared these days. The senior standout is focused. She has goals on the track and off it, and if the past is any indication, she’ll reach those goals.
“I’m not as good as I want to be,” she said. “I still have stuff to do.”
Stuff like closing out her high school career on top and then continuing her pursuit of excellence in track at the collegiate level.
This weekend, Adams – a state qualifier in the 60 meter hurdles in indoor track the past two years - will be traveling to Virginia to meet with the track coaches at Hampton University and Virginia State University.
It’s an outcome she could not have imagined when she went out for track at Tamanend Middle School in seventh grade.
“My dad said, ‘Porscha, you should go out for track,’” she said. “I wasn’t doing anything, so I did it with one of my friends. She ended up quitting, but I have this thing – I do not quit.”
Adams admits she struggled that first year. Then, in eighth grade, her coach suggested she try the event that has been her passion – the hurdles.
“I wasn’t that good,” she said. “But I fell in love with the hurdles.”
One year later, she was good at it and was winning regularly.
“She has such long legs, and she could just step over them,” Senske said.
Although Adams survived those first torturous days of getting sick at high school track practices, she was experiencing none of the success she’d had in middle school.
“I lost, and I was so angry,” she said. “I don’t like losing, and that made me even more determined.
“I saw how fast everyone was, and I was tired of coming in last.”
So Adams decided to do something about it. She found a hurdles coach, and she went to work.
“That was something she did completely on her own,” Senske said.
As a junior, Adams opted to go out for cross country even though she was a sprinter.
“I wanted to stay in shape,” she said.
Cross country was anything but a natural fit for Adams.
“I run on my toes, and in cross country, you have to run on your heels,” she said. “I even walk on my toes, and in order to run on my heels so my calves won’t ache, I have to slow it down a little bit because it’s unnatural for me to walk on my heels.
“I don’t like it, but I have goals that I have set, and that’s going to help me in the sprints.”
It’s that drive to excel that sets Adams apart from the rest.
“She’s ultra competitive,” Senske said. “She did not like the fact that she was not the best.
“We talked about her going out for cross country, and that’s something she was a little bit wary about, but she came out her junior year because she knew it was going to make her better and stronger for track. She definitely struggled. The long runs are something she’s not used to, and they’re tough for her.”
Last year, Adams qualified for districts in the 100 and 300 hurdles and the 4x400 relay and finished second in the league only to Abington star Leah Nugent.
“We saw drastic improvement,” Senske said.
This year Adams has already qualified for districts in the 100 hurdles and is close to reaching the district mark in the 300 hurdles as well. After serving as a captain of South’s indoor squad last winter, she is a captain of her outdoor squad this spring.
“She’s a self-made talent,” Senske said. “She completely chose on her own to go out of the way to make herself better, and that’s something we tell the younger girls who come onto the team.
“She’s one of the top athletes in the league, and the girls can see – she wasn’t one of those kids who came out and had the talent automatically.”
Last year, Adams approached her coach about a diet that would help her perform better.
“She stuck to it like no other,” Senske said. “In 10th grade, she would come in with Cheetos or something like that for a snack. She switched immediately to fruits, vegetables and proteins.
“She’s the kind of person you never have to wonder if she did everything you asked her to do. You never have to question her. All the choices she makes in general are very disciplined.”
Adams carries that same work ethic and discipline into the classroom – Senske, a math teacher at South, can attest to that.
“I had her in class, and she’s one of the hardest workers you’ll ever see,” the Titans’ coach said. “Even there, she puts in so much extra effort and will come in every day with questions.
“She doesn’t settle for ‘I don’t get it.’ She’s just a pleasure to have in class. She works really hard.”
While Adams is clear about her goals in track, she’s equally definitive about her goals off the track. She plans to major in psychology with her sights set on becoming a psychiatric analyst and working for the CIA.
“I was reading about it, and I liked everything about it,” she said.
Last summer, Adams – whose hobbies include photography – did community service at Full Circle Thrift in Doylestown. She plans to once again volunteer her time for an organization whose proceeds go to the Women’s Shelter.
For now, however, Adams’ focus is on a sport that has been her passion.
“I will never stop hurdling,” she said. “There’s just something about it. I love the feeling of going over the hurdles.”
Perhaps no one appreciates the level of excellence Adams has attained more than her coach.
“A lot of coaches see her now and say, ‘You have that talent on your team,’” Senske said. “She really had to work on it.
“She definitely has a natural talent that was given to her. Her build does lend itself to the hurdles, so she does have that natural form. But natural form is one thing, making it as a district and state qualifier – that’s a completely other thing that she did on her own.”
