Two of his great-grandmothers were Cherokee women who married European-American men: Nelson Carr and George B. Keeler, who played roles in trade and oil in early Oklahoma.

After a brief stint at Menlo College, he transferred to the University of Kansas (KU), where he played briefly on the varsity football team as he completed an engineering degree.

These new venues featured amenities such as "club seating" and other potential revenue streams that were not part of the NFL's default revenue-sharing arrangements.

Lanier knew that Houstonians were not willing to spend money for a brand-new stadium less than a decade after helping pay for heavily renovating the Astrodome.

The backlash was swift and immediate in Houston, as fan interest quickly dried up, to the point radio broadcasts would fall from being broadcast statewide to only flagship station KTRH and some stations in Tennessee (and even then, KTRH would drop games midway through in favor of pregame shows for Houston Rockets preseason games), and attendance would completely implode to the point on-field discussions between coaches and players could be heard from the stands, with the nadir coming in the final home game on December 15, 1996, a 21–13 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals that saw a disastrous attendance of just 15,131, a total that wouldn't even sell out a Rockets game at The Summit.

Following this ordeal, the city, unwilling to endure this quagmire for another year, agreed to let Adams out of his lease a season early, and the team was officially gone from Houston.

The move up of the relocation would prove a blessing and a curse for the vagabond Oilers, as the team now needed a temporary home until the Nashville stadium was completed in 1999.

Although 50,677 people showed up, the crowd appeared to be composed of at least half, and as many as three-fourths, Steeler fans, leading Adams to begrudingly move the franchise to Vanderbilt Stadium for 1998.

[8] The Oilers had had a proud history in Houston, winning the first two AFL Championships, which were the city's first major league titles, and featuring American Football League Hall of Fame enshrinees and all-stars such as George Blanda, Charlie Hennigan, and Billy Cannon.

On November 15, 2009, Adams was caught on video displaying an obscene gesture towards the Buffalo bench after the Titans routed the Bills 41–14.

He gained his 400th career victory in the 2011 season finale when his Titans defeated the team which replaced his Oilers in Houston, the Texans.