Federal firings cost Kansas coach his job. Now, he works unpaid as team fights for victory
Less than two miles from the University of Kansas, home of one of the most storied programs in college basketball, Adam Strom, the 48-year-old coach at Haskell Indian Nations University — tiny with 978 students, beleaguered and long overshadowed — blew his whistle twice on Monday night to gather his team’s attention.
“OK, it’s about that time,” he said, beginning practice. “Let’s stretch. Let’s warm-up. We’ll meet at half (court). Let’s go ladies.”
Every one of his players, 17 young women from as many tribal nations — Blackfoot, Apache, Navajo, Nez Perce and more — knew the situation, one that began as wrenching, but has since turned inspiring.
On Feb. 15, they were brought to tears following their Senior Night victory, an 87-18 walloping of Kansas Christian College, when Strom informed them that, in keeping with one of President Trump’s executive orders to reduce the federal workforce, he had been fired one day prior, on Valentine’s Day. His dismissal was “effective immediately.”
A winning coach in his fourth year, he was still technically a probationary employee at a federally funded institution. It wasn’t just him that was out, but also close to 40 colleagues — 25% of the school’s entire workforce.
It is a number so great that on Feb. 17, Dalton Henry, the interim president of the National Haskell Board of Regents, wrote a letter to Doug Burgum, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, asking for a waiver, a reprieve from the order, arguing that a cut so deep to Haskell could be existential.
It “would have disastrous consequences for fulfilling its educational mission,” he wrote.
“Haskell is already underfunded and struggles to fulfill its educational mission,” the letter said. “Further reductions in its workforce could threaten its ability to maintain operations.”
No reprieve has come, except from Coach Strom. He told his team he’s not going anywhere.
Adversity and pride
Fired, unpaid, no office that is his, as soon as he was summarily let go, he made the decision to volunteer as coach, rather than abandon a team that on Saturday (March 1) will play for a chance to win the CAC, or Continental Athletic Conference championship. In so doing, Haskell for the third time in four years could enter the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) tournament.
“I got lost in emotion, probably uncharacteristically,” said Strom, part of the Yakama Nation and raised in Wapato, Washington. “I questioned the equitability of the situation. But I gathered myself and said, ‘This is an example of adversity in life.’ I did tell them, ‘They can remove the coaching title, but they can’t remove me from my coaching duties.’”
His decision is one that has brought Strom sudden and unexpected media attention, from local news to the Washington Post. It’s also a decision that his team had no doubt he’d make.
“It was pretty surprising and kind of confusing because of how fast it happened, not only to him, but to like half our school,” said Myona Dauphinais, 20, a junior shooting guard from the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota, and the team’s top scorer. “But we didn’t worry about it. We knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He just has too much pride to let something like that take him away from what he needs to do.”
And too much character, said Tierzah Penn, 22. Also a junior shooting guard from the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, she’s the team’s second leading scorer.
“Everyone was in shock and tears,” she said. “We had just come from celebrating our seniors. I was so happy for them. Then he told us. As soon as he said he had news for us, we kind of knew. . . .
“It’s hard. He’s really helped me. Anytime I wanted to come to the gym, he was there. Anytime I wanted extra workouts, he was there.”
‘We play for Indian country’
A 25-year veteran of the game, Strom said he plans to be there until the final game, at least this for this season.
The historical irony of an order, essentially a government edict, striking so hard at one of the nation’s 35 accredited TCUs, or Tribal Colleges & Universities, does not escape him.
Founded by the U.S. Army in 1884, Haskell was birthed from tragedy. It was created as an Indian boarding school, where children were removed from their parents and tribal nations to be stripped of their culture and heritage and assimilated into white America. Children died there. A graveyard for 103 children at the southern edge of the campus speaks to that legacy.
“We talk about historical traumas,” Strom said. “We talk about MMIW — missing and murdered Indigenous women. We talk about Land Back” — a movement to return Native lands to Native peoples — “We touch on those things.”
In 1933, the goal of assimilation declined when Henry Roe Cloud, who emphasized celebrating and preserving Native American culture rather than wiping it out, became the school’s first Native American superintendent. In 1967, Haskell became a junior college. In 1993, it became a university offering Native Americans free education.
“It all leads back to the locker room,” Strom said. “I tell them, ‘Some people play for their town. Some people play for their community. Some people play for their institution. Some people play for their mascot. But, in this locker room, every time we step onto the court, we play for Indian country. Indian country is all the Native Americans throughout the United States.”
He continued, “I do bring those things up, because we need to be resilient. We need to be strong. That’s what I try to share with the ladies. My ancestors, your ancestors, endured many hardships. We play for Indian country. They get it 100%.”
Valentine’s Day firing
Strom isn’t saying that losing his job came easy. Coaching is all he ever wanted to do. His late father coached basketball for 30 years. When Strom, who has both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, first began coaching in high school, his father gave him a book by famed University of California, Los Angeles, coach John Wooden.
“Inside, in felt pen, was my dad’s writing,” Strom said. “He said, ‘Some day you’re going to make a great college coach.’ I feel every time I accept a coaching job, and every time I’m performing a coaching job, I feel like my dad is smiling.”
To this day, Strom’s dream is not to be a head coach, but an assistant coach at a Division 1 school in the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He took the job at Haskell in 2021. Two of his three sons, twins Bryan and Bryce, have played on Haskell’s men’s team. Strom built the women’s program.
When his athletic director, Zach Wilkerson, called him on Valentine’s Day, Strom was just returning from Topeka where his wife, Relyn Strom, is the principal at Robinson Middle School.
“I got my wife flowers and coffee and snacks,“ Strom said. “I came back into Lawrence and stopped by the shirt shop where the printed T-shirts were being made for our seniors, because Senior Night was Saturday.”
His phone rings. Wilkerson, he said, asked him. “Are you on campus?” Strom was five minutes away. He drove to the athletic director’s office.
“So I go in there and he said, ‘You’re on the list.’ And I said, ‘OK, I’m on a list.’ And he said, ‘The Trump administration has an order that is mandating that all probationary employees are terminated effective today.’
He said the university said it was looking into whether his position might be spared because of previous work he had done for the federal government. The previous work might make it so he was not considered probationary.
“The announcement started to sink in,” Strom said of his approximately $80,000-a-year job. “This could really happen. I could be out of a job, but more so not to be able to coach the team. That is more concerning.”
In less than an hour, Strom said, Wilkerson confirmed the news. “He kind of leans his head and says, ‘You’re one of the ones that is going to be terminated effective today. Today is your last day of employment. I say, ‘I have one question.’ He said, ‘I know your question.’ And I said, ‘Is there a possibility of me continuing throughout the end of the season?’ He said, ‘I knew you were going to ask that. I’ve looked into it. It’s going to have to be on a voluntary basis.’
“I said, ‘That’s fine. That’s all I can ask for.’ I go back to my office. I look at my things and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not ready to turn this in.’”
Strom called his wife.
“She’s crying on the phone, and her crying was twofold,” he said. “One, she knows how passionate I am about coaching. And two, she knows that was my job. That was my employment. I mean, I’m a married man. I’ve been employed my whole life. Not having an income, it affects the marriage and household.”
He didn’t tell his team that Friday, waiting until after the Senior Night game. Six seniors are on the team.
“Those seniors deserved to be recognized,” he said. “One hundred percent, it’s about the kids.”
The best of us
Strom is not worried about his future. Since the news of his firing has spread, he has been receiving job offers, including, he said, from the Topeka Public Schools, where his wife is employed.
Supporters also set up a GoFundMe site.
“For more than two decades,” it reads, “Adam has worked tirelessly, giving everything to help young athletes find hope and a positive outlet through the game he loves. Basketball isn’t just a sport for Adam—it’s a passion, a calling, and a way to make a real difference in the lives of these kids, many of whom face extraordinary struggles.”
As of Thursday, it has raised just less than $9,200.
At practice Monday, his prime concern was about their upcoming championship game, in which they are the No. 2 seed.
“I elected to continue coaching the team without compensation. But it hasn’t been a hindrance on our team, our practice, our attention to detail, our focus.
“I think adversity has brought the best out of us, combined, by myself as a coach, and them as a team. I think they have more determination than frustration. And I think we’re going to channel our emotions in the right direction — and that’s to conquer a 2025 CAC championship.”
On the court, another whistle. Time for drills.
This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 6:41 AM.
