Where Are They Now: Adam Boomer

By: Bill Oram
GameDay Kaimin

The only time a “boom” is heard in Washington-Grizzly Stadium these days is when the cannon is fired in celebration of a Montana score. But it wasn’t that far back when a “boom” meant much more to Grizzly football fans.
From 1997 to 2000, a high energy linebacker consistently brought the cacophonous crowd to its feet with every tackle, each one prompting from 19,000 pairs of Griz-loving lungs a low, appreciative chant of his oh-so-appropriate surname: Boomer.
“It was more like a ‘boo,’ then with a (soft) ‘er’, Adam Boomer recalls. “Everyone was like ‘Why are they booing that kid?’”
But any neophyte who thought the Montana faithful were jeering No. 42 would have been helplessly mistaken. His hard hits, which surely reverberated through the bones of countless offensive offenders, also sent jolts through the raucous crowds.
“They’d start chanting ‘Boomer! Boomer! Boomer!’ Then if he made a play, they really got into it,” said Grizzly assistant coach Tom Hauck, who joined the program in 2000 and is the uncle of head coach Bobby Hauck. “It wasn’t that he was playing to the crowd or anything, but they really got into him.”
A four-year starter, Boomer racked up 268 tackles – including 32 for loss – in his career at Montana. He was named first team All-Big Sky Conference his final two seasons.
“He was one of those guys, played with a high motor, he practiced with a high motor,” said Grizzly defensive coordinator Kraig Paulson, one of the few current Griz coaches who was around during Boomer’s playing days. “He’d give you everything he could.”
After leaving the University of Montana, Boomer did a two-year spell in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but in 2002, a torn ACL in his left knee – the same injury from his right leg that sidelined Boomer his freshman year – abruptly halted that pursuit.
“I sat down (on the field) and told the trainer I had a torn ACL and they helped me off,” he said.
That’s how his football career ended.
In the ensuing handful of years he moved back to Missoula, spent some time visiting churches across the country as a motivational speaker and then happened into a sales career.
Boomer isn’t particularly inclined to gush about what he does these days. True to the humble reputation he owned as a Grizzly star, he brushes off an inquiry of what he’s up to.
“Well I’m watching a little Yankees baseball right now,” he said.
And why not? Boomer and his wife – they’ve been married four years – are now proud residents of Manhattan, N.Y. He sells screws and rods used in spinal surgeries. He works with nurses and neurologists and trains residents to properly use the equipment. His wife is in her third year of medical school at New York Medical College. Last month, Boomer started pursuing his MBA at Pace University in New York.
It’s a long way from Boomer’s hometown of American Falls, Idaho, population 4,000. The East Coast was not a place he ever saw himself, especially after he first visited shortly after his CFL career was cut short.
“When I first came out here and visited, the smell of urine and garbage wasn’t very enticing for Manhattan,” Boomer said, “but you get used to it and you pay extra for it now.”
While the big city certainly has its detractions, according to Boomer, he’s grown to appreciate some of the most essential amenities.
“The food’s just the most amazing food you’ve ever had in your life and it’s right around the corner. And it’s all open until midnight. There’s a place down the street that doesn’t even open until 5 o’clock,” he marvels.
But don’t think for a second that Boomer has stopped caring about Montana, the Grizzlies, or football.
“I still read the Missoulian to see what the weather’s like,” he said. He said a week doesn’t go by in which he doesn’t talk to a former coach or teammate.
Paulson said he expects Boomer to be successful in business; it was his way as a Grizzly, too. He went all out.
“The beauty of it is when you got to know him off the field he was very likeable,” Paulson said.
Boomer hasn’t attended a Griz game in years, but hopes that changes this season.
“Hopefully we can get out to Tennessee this fall,” he said.
The Football Championship Subdivision national championship game is held annually in Chattanooga, Tenn. Boomer was there twice as a player: as a redshirt freshman in 1996 and as a senior in 2000. The Griz lost both title games.
Boomer’s father-in-law recently asked him what he missed most about playing football.
“I was like, the violence,” Boomer said.
That shouldn’t suggest he yearned for bloodlust, Paulson said, rather that he desired to be in on every play, that he loved the action.
He took a great deal of pride in every hit, every opportunity to make a sound that was, for a while, a Griz Nation favorite.
Boom.