‘GRANDMA FLAME’ FUELS CHEERS
‘Grandma Flame’ fuels cheers at Northgate games
When it comes to fanatical fans, never underestimate the power of a grandmother. Home and away games — even in a downpour — if one of her four grandsons is playing, Denise Adams, 63, of Emsworth, is cheering on the Northgate Flames.
“She’s ‘Grandma Flame’ to an entire school,” said T.J. Wiley, Northgate High School’s head football coach.
Wearing a gold lamé jacket studded with medallions and a matching bowler hat topped with a pitchfork and red flames and shaking gallon jugs filled with pennies as noisemakers, Mrs. Adams does far more than cheerlead during the hundreds of games — she hasn’t kept count — that she has attended.
“Everybody knows who she is. She rallies the troops when we need her, and she does it in such a positive way,” the coach said. “All our kids are proud of her. It’s part of their identity that we have this fanatical fan.”
“Gram” to running back Surron and starting quarterback Stefon — the 17-year-old Adams twins — as well as younger brother Terrel Jackson, 13, who plays for the middle school team, Mrs. Adams has been an unofficial mascot since their oldest brother Shane, a 2014 graduate, began playing for the team in 2011.
Also fueling the flames for the red and gold from the bleachers is her family: daughter Shaquel Adams, mother of the twins; husband of 42 years, Gary A. Adams; and their sons, Gary R. and Tay Adams.
Life is temporarily easier these days as the number of games go, but since Mrs. Adams has five children and 18 grandchildren ranging in age from 2 to 22, that changes season to season.
“Now I only have two games a week to go to on Fridays and Wednesdays,” she said.
Several years ago, with four grandsons and several nephews, she cheered on four different teams with weekly games.
How does she manage? She asks each grandchild for a schedule and then vows: “I will do my best to be there at least part of a game,” she said.
“I leave home at 6 a.m. if games were away and return sometimes not until 8 p.m. or later,” she said.
One time she was sick and couldn’t make any of that day’s games.
“The kids called after their games and said, ‘Everybody missed you, Grandma. Everybody missed your team spirit.’ That made me feel special,” Mrs. Adams recalled.
A preschool teacher’s aide at Manchester Youth Development Center, if it’s Monday or Friday, she wears her black and gold Steelers regalia. That costume was featured in a 2015 television commercial during a Baltimore Ravens game.
“The little ones just love it,” she said.
It was 1964, at age 12, when she first dressed in team colors to watch Steelers games with her mom, Estelle Dutrielle. (Mom never dressed up for games.) When Mrs. Adams’ son, Gary, uncle of the the Northgate players, and several nephews played for the Sheraden Bull Dogs, she attended games with outrageous hats in school colors and those penny noisemakers.
When her grandchildren began to play, she added costumes. Her outfits have included a full Native American headdress and outfit during the years they played for North Hills Youth Football Association to pay homage to that team’s mascot.
Mrs. Adams said that family members pick her up at work on game days and inspire each other to keep going. The school spirit continued even last year when the twins’ mother had surgery to remove a brain tumor.
“Being diabetic, I get tired many times and would say, ‘I can’t make it’ and the grandsons would say, ‘You have to come, Gram. We all hear you in the stands cheering us on no matter if we are winning or losing.’ And then I think, I can’t let my team down,’’ she said.
Players said they can pick out her voice, even at Northgate’s homecoming game last month, when Northgate, ranked No. 6 in the state for Class 1A, faced Rochester Area High School, ranked No. 4. Both were undefeated.
Northgate was winning until Rochester scored in the final two minutes. In the midst of the roaring crowd, the boys said, they could still hear her shouting onto the field, “Flames, you are and still will be winners, no matter what!”
Mrs. Adams said she plans to do the fantastic fan dress for games as long as she is able and is now compiling schedules for a basketball season that will include games for Gary Adams’ daughter, Denise Adams, 10.
“Some days I would be so tired, but I love how it makes the kids feel to just know Grandma is really, really watching and enjoying them play.”