Friday, Oct. 5, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.
Age: 22
Height/weight: 6- foot-1, 210 pounds
Position: UNLV combo guard
Hometown: Houston
Family: Mother, Reandre; brother, Jarvis
Major: Junior majoring in university studies, with an emphasis in sociology and physical education
Hobbies: Billiards, bowling and movies
Personal: Named Jo'Van, he was nicknamed Wink at a young age by a great-grandmother because he did that so often.
Wink Adams at UNLV
| GP-GS | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Points per game
2005-06 | 30-20 | .407 | .333 | .723 | 100 | 73 | 63 | 10.9
2006-07 | 37-37 | .384 | .358 | .755 | 142 85 | 55 | 13.9
Total | 67-57 | .393 | .349 | .745 | 242 | 158 | 118 | 12.6
Now they're tripping over themselves in Houston, offering to help "Mama Wink," wondering if she needs anything. Would she like a burger and a Coke?
Where was all that good will when she was forced to use towels as diapers on Jo'Van "Wink" Adams - who grew up and became a UNLV basketball star - because nobody would help out with a case of diapers?
She'd wrap him in a bed sheet to protect him from the rain because she couldn't afford an umbrella.
Even Jeffrey, the father Wink Adams never knew, wants to get back in the picture.
"But Winky don't know him," says Reandre Adams, "and I don't really want to know him."
All around Houston, she is known as Mama Wink. She raised Wink and older brother Jarvis by herself, at times working three jobs .
Wink would massage her feet and Jarvis would rub down her legs when she came home exhausted from a Whataburger shift .
Don't give up on us Mama, the boys said, you're doing good. Just don't give up on us.
Timely food or encouraging words came only from Reandre's paternal grandmother, Clemenstine .
Reandre Adams struggled, but she paid every bill on time , she says .
Neither Wink nor Jarvis, who played football in high school and now works on a loading dock, ever ran with the wrong crowd. They don't smoke or drink, and they don't go to nightclubs.
Off the court, Wink smiles constantly. He's quick with "Yes, sir " and "No, sir ." He never asked for Air Jordans when all his friends had pairs of the snazzy red and black high-tops.
Halfway through a lengthy telephone interview about her youngest son, the lone returning starter from UNLV's Sweet 16 team, Mama Wink broke down in her tiny apartment south of Houston.
"I'm a very big baby," she says. "I cry a lot. I'm crying because I'm so happy. He really proved to me that he could go to Vegas and be the best.
"If God takes me tomorrow, I know my son will be OK. I tell him, when I'm in heaven, I'll still look down at you."
Reandre Adams, 43, played basketball at Sam Houston State. She had a good outside shooting touch , and very early, she knew Wink would inherit that skill.
"I think Winky came out of me shooting," she says. "He was really moving around in there. The boy just has skills."
He wasn't tall, he complained to his mother. She said it's what's inside that counts. Look at Spud Webb. You're taller than him and he's in the NBA. It's not the height, it's how you carry yourself and how positive you are.
"He didn't say anything else about being short," she says.
She also knew how to toughen up Wink, now 6-feet-1. When he was 7, she had him playing with 12- and 14-year-olds. When he was 14, he was competing against 17- and 18-year-olds.
Other parents questioned that tactic. She told them to mind their own business. She knew what was best for her boys.
Get up when you fall, she told Wink. You might fall a million times, and you'll have to get up each time. You're a small player, and your future will be against bigger players. Once you get that respect, stuff will open up for you.
"She threw me into the fire," Wink Adams says, "and my brother's friends showed me no pity. It made me tough. I'll jump into anyone, no matter how big."
He nearly jumped into his mother's arms when that letter arrived from UNLV. Rebels assistant coach Lew Hill officially announced the program's interest in him.
He had always been interested in the Rebels, since he and his mother watched on television as they ran to the Final Four in 1991. She took a liking to Larry Johnson .
Mama, Wink said, one day I'll play for UNLV. Nah, she said, you'll end up playing around here.
He ran into the house when the letter arrived from Las Vegas.
Reandre Adams was cooking in the kitchen. He told her to close her eyes. She closed them. "Look!" said Wink, waving the envelope bearing the UNLV logo.
"I mean, I freaked out," she says. "I called everyone I knew. He claimed that school when he was a little boy. He really came through.
"And I brought that letter to church."
Some in Houston still ask Mama Wink how she could let her boy leave home and star for someone else.
"I let him go where he wanted to go," she says. "I wasn't going to take that dream away."
When Wink fell awkwardly on his tailbone playing against Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament's opening round in March in Chicago, he hopped back up. But intense pain kept him from finishing the game.
It continued to sting him in a Sweet 16 loss to Oregon in St. Louis, but he played.
"Because my mother flew out there," he says. "I had to play and try my best."
Wink went home in May and June, and for two weeks in August.
He gorged on his mother's specialties, like pork chops smothered in gravy, and greens, mashed potatoes, corn bread and macaroni. He put on 20 pounds, tipping the scales at 210. But conditioning drills and a diet should trim him to 200 for the start of practice in a few weeks.
He bench presses 215, 15 more pounds than he did a year ago.
He again played against older competition, such as best friend Gerald Green (Minnesota Timberwolves), T.J. Ford (Toronto Raptors), Steve Francis (New York Knicks) and John Lucas III (Houston Rockets) , in pickup runs at Rice University.
Mountain West Conference guards will not want to hear that Wink Adams is bigger, stronger and quicker.
UNLV coach Lon Kruger regularly talks to him about being a rudder of the program for the next two seasons, and it's easy to determine who first taught Adams about leading.
He calls her daily, making sure she's not worrying about him. He doesn't have much, but he offers her the few dollars he has. She says she's all right.
She continues turning away those who want to befriend her.
"It's too late for everyone to come to me now," Mama Wink says. "I just need my boys and the good Lord upstairs. I ask God every day, please give to Winky what I couldn't."
Reandre Adams gave Wink plenty.
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