Photography by Lucas Purvis

This or that? With Sean Adams, you get both. On email, he’s this Sean Adams. On Twitter, he’s that Sean Adams. (Fans might recognize the homage to ‘90s hip-hop duo Black Sheep.)

As a child, it was both laughter and discipline Adams got from his parents.

Teasing was part of family life growing up in the Oakland Bay area of California. “There was a lot of laughter,” Adams says.

Today, this NCAA All-American turned radio host and motivational speaker loves breaking down sports as much as laughing at himself.

“I’m going to take my job seriously, but I’m not going to take myself seriously,” he says.

Outside that laughter-filled home, the neighborhood streets were tough, so Thomas and Carolyn Adams were loving, yet strict parents. Searching for a way to inspire their three kids, Thomas Adams came up with what is now the title for his son’s second book, “It’s Okay to be Crazy.”

“He’d say, ‘You’ve got to be a little bit crazy to be successful; to believe in yourself when nobody else does; to take a big risk and know you can manage the failure when it happens,’” Adams says.

Not if it happens, but when it happens, he stresses.

“That always resonated with me growing up,” Adams says. “It’s probably why I’ve tried a bunch of different stuff.”

That “stuff” includes: athlete, corporate suit, athletics coach, broadcast journalist, author and motivational speaker. He even worked a spell in Washington, D.C., for Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton Administration.

Through it all, he has never shrunk from exposing his flaws. “I failed more than I succeeded, and I’ll make fun of myself for it,” he says. “I talk all the time about the thing I was best at in sports was getting hurt.”

The value his parents placed on hard work, community and church engagement has spurred Adams, who served six years on the board at Caritas of Austin. “I believe that to who much is given, much is expected,” Adams says.

He recalls his father telling them, “In America, if you decide to put your best foot forward, you can change your lot in life.”

It’s a maxim Adams now repeats to his own kids, to student athletes he coaches and to audiences he speaks to in schools, colleges and boardrooms across the country.

He’s not only fierce about his country, but also his adopted state.

“I am a 100 percent transplant Texan now,” he says. “I tell everybody I don’t know whether I’m going to heaven or to hell, but I’m going from Texas!”

Said with his signature grin and emphatic thump on the table, there’s more than a glimpse of the fast-talking kid in the 6’4,” now 40-year-old Adams.

He came to Texas when he accepted a full scholarship from Abilene Christian University, where he ran track and played football. He also gained both an undergraduate degree and an MBA.

Studying business and finance in college taught Adams to work the numbers, to analyze and above all, to examine.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” says this avid reader of the classics, quoting Plato. He’s even named his self-publishing company “38A Publishing” in honor of the line from the Greek philosopher’s writings.

These days, the self-described “geek in sports clothing” is always looking for the positive lesson to be learned – for the reason behind the missed field goal, the dropped pass, the game-turning fumble.

The end result: “I can have my opinion, and have some reason behind it. It’s not just the passion of a fanatic. I feel blessed to be part of the conversation that shapes how we approach our sports.”

What about the negative aspect of professional sports and its seemingly unending roll call of fallen stars? What does he tell young athletes like his son?

“I can help my son appreciate their athletic accomplishments and their work ethic without wanting to be them,” he says. “It’s my whole, ‘Eat the fish, spit out the bones,’ philosophy.”

Adams shares his philosophies on his radio show to audiences as a speaker and via his books. He’s the first to admit he has no professional training in these successful endeavors.

A lucky break landed him on ESPN Austin radio – first with David Anderson, then with Chip Brown. Finally, last November, he was given “The Adams Theory,” with co-host Ari Temkin.

“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” says Adams, but he emphasizes that luck is not random, nor does it mean a lack of hard work.

“I define luck as working your behind off, preparing yourself so that when an opportunity comes, you can do it,” he says. “Getting into radio was an opportunity.”

A similar story of hard work and opportunities grasped lies behind both his first book and his motivational speaking. Training a group of top-notch student athletes one summer, he couldn’t find the right kind of motivational book for them. So, being Sean Adams, he sat down and wrote his own.

It’s about understanding that the same things that will make you successful in sports will make you successful in life. It’s the basis for the advice Adams gives to anyone who asks – and many who don’t.

“Take your job seriously; don’t take yourself seriously,” he says. “We’re all going to fail. When you do, you’ve gotta own it. That’s the only way you really get over it.”

The only difference between people who are ultimately successful and people who are ultimately failures is the ability to manage failure, according to Adams.

“Being able to learn from it, and then shutting the door on it and moving on to the next phase,” he says.

And how do people learn that? Don’t be intimidated, Adams says.

“Examples of failure surround us. We think we’re the only one failing when the world is checkered with failure.” Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Mack Brown – Adams believes everybody fails.

He got into motivational speaking because he loves people – young people, in particular. “I want them to hear some of the stuff that I learned growing up,” he says.

He uses the same kind of tough talk – the diet of “vitamin N” (for “No!”) – he was raised on.

“When I’m talking to football players around the country, I don’t want to hear excuses,” he says. “If you can remember that the defense we’re in right now is eagle, zipper, hero, cross X, unless the running back shifts into the I, you can learn to conjugate a verb. You just gotta want to do it.”

You can pay people to perform, but you can’t pay people to excel. That’s a decision they make, Adams believes.

His older brother, Lamar, is the perfect example of someone who finally made the decision to excel. “He went back to school at 30,” Adams says. “It was the proudest moment of my life watching him graduate.”

Talking about his brother makes the jovial, kidding-around Adams reflective. His thoughts turn again to his father, who died in 1997.

So, is Adams a little bit crazy, like his dad said he should be? That raises a big grin – and a reminder that family and football come second only to his faith.

“Probably,” he says. “But to me, that’s the life worth living. What good is life if we’re not pressing boundaries?”

Pointing at the tattooed Bible verses on his right arm, he says, in inimitable Sean Adams style, “I have a hard time thinking that God created anybody to be average. I think there’s something in everybody.”

Sean Adams’ Three

Wishes for UT Football this Season

Wish No. 1:

Learning there’s a gift that comes from going five and seven. (For those [who] don’t bleed burnt orange, that was the team’s 2010 record.) I want those kids to be testament to the fact that you can turn it around through hard work, through audacity and through sheer want to. They will be better men because they dealt with the failure.

Wish No. 2:

Leadership. In any team sport, a team that plays for a great coach wins some games. A team that plays for a great fan base wins some games. A team that plays for each other – which is true leadership – they win championships.

Wish No. 3:

Be a true reflection of the passion in the state of Texas for the game of football and the pride in this state. They lost a little bit of that last year.

Go to www.seanadams.net to read his blog and thought for the day. Listen weekdays between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to “The Adams Theory” on 104.9 The Horn, ESPN Austin. For more information, visit www.espnaustin.com.