VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Photo Credit: WCAX TV

Media
Essex Junction
Inducted 2012

Several generations of Vermonters grew up watching Tony Adams present the day’s sports news and highlights every evening on WCAX-TV. For 35 years from 1954 to 1989, Adams was the source for local, state and regional sports on his 15-minute segment on the nightly WCAX news hour. Among his most popular sportscasts were those honoring off all-state and championship teams as well as the student-athletes. 

Adams began his career at WMUR-TV in Manchester, NH, before joining the WCAX news team. His nightly signoff of “Good Night, Good Sports” attained iconic status. 

In addition to his role as the state’s premier television sportscaster, Adams served as the voice of the University of Vermont football, basketball and baseball teams for two decades. He handled play-by-play for the St. Michael’s College men’s basketball team for many seasons. 

Adams provided the play-by-play for the New Hampshire-Vermont Maple Sugar Bowl Shrine high school football game and he was the lead announcer on Dartmouth College football for 10 years.

Adams was widely recognized in Northeast New York state and Montreal because his evening sportscasts. He served as a backup announcer for several seasons on the Montreal Expos radio network in the 1970s.   

Throughout his career, Adams received numerous awards. He was named the Vermont Sportscaster of the Year five times by the National Sportswriters & Sportscaster Association. He was honored with the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference/Sports Information Directors Association media ward in 1978 for coverage of intercollegiate athletics in New England. In 1989, the year he retired, Adams was named the Vermont Broadcaster of the Year.

Adams is a member of the University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame, the Norwich University Athletic Hall of Fame and the Vermont Principals Association Hall of Fame. He is a charter member of the Vermont Broadcasters Hall of Fame and he has received distinguished service awards from the New England Baseball Coaches Association, the Vermont State Athletic Directors Association and the Vermont Chapter of the National Football Foundation.

A long-time volunteer at the Fletcher Allen Health Care hospital and for the Vermont Chapter of the Alzheimer Association, Adams was a resident of Essex Junction. He passed away in 2020 at the age of 95.