(Editor's note: This is the third in a series of feature profiles on this year's Hall of Fame and Wall of Honor selections that will be posted every Thursday, leading up to the Nov. 22 Hall of Fame banquet.)
 
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
           
John Adickes lived the dream of so many young boys, getting drafted by the Chicago Bears, playing three seasons in the NFL and getting within one win of the Super Bowl.
           
But, that was never his dream.
           
"When my brother (Mark) signed and played with Baylor, I had one goal: I wanted to play for Grant Teaff and the Baylor Bears. That was it," he said. "I didn't want to play for Texas or Texas A&M. I was recruited by everybody. My dream, my goal, was to play with my brother on the same line and to play for Grant Teaff. And Coach Teaff allowed me to do that."
           
Thirty-six years after fulfilling that dream and starting on the same offensive line with his brother, John will join his older brother in the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame. Part of a 2019 class that includes fellow football players Steve Beaird and Robin Jones, he will be inducted at the Nov. 22 Hall of Fame banquet and honored the next day at the Bears' game against Texas.
           
"I played the game because I loved the game," he said. "I came to Baylor because I wanted to play for Coach Teaff. Our ultimate goal was to win a Southwest Conference championship and a national championship. I never put a lot of weight in personal accolades, I've always put team goals first. I'd give up every personal goal if we could have won one Southwest Conference championship."
           
While Baylor never won a conference title during his tenure, the Bears did play in three bowl games and had a four-year record of 30-16-1 with victories over LSU in the 1985 Liberty Bowl and Colorado in the 1986 Bluebonnet Bowl.
           
"Coach Teaff taught us to play as one," John said. "Don't play as individuals, but play together as a team and great things can happen."
           
At both Killeen High School and Baylor, John played in the rather large shadow cast by his brother. Mark Adickes, inducted into the Baylor Hall of Fame in 1998, was an All-American at Baylor and won a Super Bowl championship during an eight-year NFL career before becoming an orthopedic surgeon and injury expert with ESPN.
           
"The advantage I had over my brother is that I got to watch him play," said John, who is three years younger. "I got to watch high school games for three years before I started playing; college games, pro games, everything else. I've watched a lot of great football players playing football. When I was a freshman in high school, they started calling me 'Cubby,' because everybody knew what I wanted to do. They said when Grant Teaff gives you a scholarship, then we'll call you 'Bear.'''
           
That's why John says that the "biggest phone call I've ever received in my life" was when Teaff called to offer him a scholarship.
           
"To me, that was the greatest compliment any coach could ever give me," he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd play for Coach Teaff anywhere, anywhere he coached."
           
After redshirting in 1982, John started for a 7-4-1 team that lost to Oklahoma State in the Bluebonnet Bowl and earned Freshman All-America honors from Football News. With Mark playing left tackle, the Adickes brothers made up two-fifths of the Bears' starting offensive line.
           
A four-year starter at center, John was a two-time All-SWC selection and earned third-team All-America honors as a junior and second team as a sophomore. He was named to Baylor's All-Decade team of the 1980s and selected to the All-Century team by Dave Campbell.
           
"You just look at the top of the organization to the bottom of the organization, Grant Teaff built a family environment in which he showed us a lot of grace. We all make mistakes, but he gave us second chances," John said. "You see what's going on in a lot of these programs today, and I don't see coaches giving the grace that Grant Teaff did when he was a coach at Baylor."
           
As a sixth-round draft pick by the Chicago Bears in 1987, John played in 23 games in three seasons and was part of the '88 team that lost to San Francisco in the NFC Championship game.
           
"(Former Baylor offensive lineman) Joel Porter was drafted the year after I was," John said. "We went through that first week of two-a-days and practice, and Joel looked at me and said, 'I don't want to play pro football. I think I'm going to go back to school.' He got there and was like, 'You know what, this isn't fun. I'm done.'''
           
Two years later, John Adickes was done as well, putting his brief NFL career behind him.
           
"I never did dream of playing in the NFL," he said. "I wanted to go to Baylor and get a business degree and go into either accounting or finance. My dream was to play college football and to play for Grant Teaff."
           
John earned a degree in real estate and finance at Baylor and then went back to school after the NFL, earning a master's in business administration from UT-Dallas. Now the Senior Vice President and financial planning specialist, he has been with the Morgan Stanley office in San Antonio since 2000.
           
To this day, John remembers sitting down with Coach Teaff as an 18-year-old freshman and his coach asking him about his goals for life – "Where do you see yourself at 21? Where do you see yourself at 30? Where do you see yourself at 50? And how are you going to get there?''

"You're sitting here with a man who is your football coach, but he is really your life coach," John said. "And then he's giving you the analogy of the four-legged stool. If you're not balancing all of these areas, then you're going to wobble and fall over. You need to have goals in all aspects of your life – spiritual goals, educational goals, etc. And he was right."
           
John and his wife, Lisa, have a son, Spencer, who was an All-American and state champion swimmer in high school and graduated from Trinity University with a degree in accounting.
           
Excited about returning to campus for the Hall of Fame induction, John said he remembers Floyd Casey Stadium as a "great place to play, but I think (McLane Stadium) is much nicer, and I think it's a much better viewing stadium. . . . it feels like you're right on top of the action."
           
Besides Beaird and Jones, joining Adickes in the 2019 Hall of Fame class are former All-Americans Ryan Baca from men's golf and Lauren Hagans Paquette from track & field, baseball's Josh Ford, softball's Lisa Ferguson Murphy and Curtis Jerrells from men's basketball. Additionally, Mark Hurd and Jody Conradt will be added to the Wall of Honor. 
           
The Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, in the Brazos Room at the Waco Convention Center. Tickets cost $50 per person, with table sponsorships also available for $600 (green) and $800 (gold), and can be purchased by contacting the "B" Association at 254-710-3045 or by email at Tammy_Hardin@baylor.edu.