FORT BLISS, Texas –
In the fall of 2022, Army Capt. Cara Adams sat with then-coach Paul Parker during the All-Army women’s basketball training camp in a gym at Fort Bliss, Texas. For more than a week, the best basketball players in the Army battled to earn a spot on the All-Army team that would compete for the Armed Forces Championship.
Parker said he put her name on the short list of players likely to be cut from the team.
To Adams, the news could have been devastating after returning to competitive basketball for the first time since 2017. But the 5-foot-7-inch guard had been an underdog for most of her life.
While she was never the most athletic or skilled player on her teams growing up in suburban Massachusetts, it never stopped Adams from reaching her athletic goals.
“I think I was nervous, and I wasn't shooting very well,” said Adams of the 2022 camp. “But I refocused.”
Adams decided to compete harder. She shot the ball more. She hustled harder after loose balls. As she had done since her high school and college years, Adams worked her way into the lineup. She earned the trust of one of the assistant coaches by bringing an outside shooting touch.
That mindset eventually helped her make the All-Army women’s basketball team roster that fall, and again in 2023. Now, Adams has earned a roster spot on the prestigious All-Armed Forces team for the second time.
Adams, an Army dietician stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, helped Army finish in second place at the 2026 Armed Forces Basketball Championship at Camp Pendleton, California, in May, averaging 5.9 points over five games while leading the team in 3-point shooting. She played a key role as a reserve on the All-Army 2022 championship squad and the 2023 second-place team.
“If she decides she's going to do something, she's going to put the time in to do it right,” said Adams’ college coach, Daphne Thompson.
Later this month, Adams will travel to Bourges, France, and join the All-Armed Forces women’s basketball team to compete at the 2026 Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM) Women’s Military World Basketball Championship, June 27-July 5.
Basketball in her blood
During the frigid winters of the Northeast, Adams would battle her two older brothers in the family driveway. She grew up in a hoops family in Attleboro, Massachusetts — a suburb of 45,000 that sits 5 miles from the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line.
Although physically outmatched, Adams would never get discouraged. She would scrap and jostle with her brothers for rebounds, both of whom would go on to compete on their high school team.
“Basketball was always my love,” she said.
She first picked up a basketball in second grade, following in her brothers’ footsteps. She thought basketball was the ultimate team sport and enjoyed how it challenged her.
Eventually, Adams competed on youth travel teams and for Bishop Feehan High School’s varsity girls basketball team.
Adams prided herself on her stingy defense and outside shooting.
Most of all, she worked harder than her peers. She developed a deadly 3-point shot in her high school years. She decided to make herself invaluable on the court. She became quicker with her lateral movement on defense.
“I was never the star player,” she said. “And so, I had a lot to learn; I had to earn time.”
After high school graduation, Adams did not want to give up the game she had grown up playing. So she began exploring options to play collegiately, eventually contacting the State University of New York-Oneonta women’s basketball coaching staff.
Thompson, who has coached at SUNY Oneonta for 19 seasons, said she saw Adams’ raw potential when she first arrived on the campus in the quaint, small town in central New York. Thompson said she saw a physically fit prospect who lacked ball-handling skills but could hit the outside shot.
Adams spent the summer after her freshman season hitting the weight room, adding muscle to withstand the rigors of collegiate basketball. She worked on her quickness, becoming faster with her catch and release. On defense, Adams had to learn to keep up with faster, stronger college players.
“She certainly took it upon herself to make herself the best possible athlete she could,” Thompson said. “She was never the fastest player on the floor, but she was somebody who was aware of her surroundings.”
“The pieces were there,” Thompson added. “It was just a matter of how determined she was going to be to get herself on the floor.”
Adams went from playing sparingly in her first season to starting all 24 games of her senior season. She raised her scoring averages from 3.5 ppg as a freshman to a team-best 13.3 ppg as a senior and tied for second in steals, earning all-conference honors. She finished as the school’s all-time leader in 3-point shots made with 200.
She made some of her biggest strides on defense, an area in which she initially struggled as a freshman.
Toward the end of her senior season in 2016-2017, Adams suffered a broken foot. Determined to finish her career, she worked with the team doctor to continue playing. Wearing a walking boot, she had to skip practices but laced up her sneakers to compete in her final five college games.
Although the injury limited Adams physically, her presence on the court inspired her teammates, Thompson said.
“That was a very trying time, emotionally,” Thompson said. “Her presence with the rest of her team, giving them confidence that it was going to be fine and being able to step on the court and reassure them, I think, was a testament to everything she had done.”
A leader on and off the court
After earning a degree in dietetics from SUNY-Oneonta and commissioning in the Army in 2018, the Soldier attended the U.S. Army-Baylor University master's program in nutrition, graduating in 2020.
Adams quickly established herself as one of the top officers in her military occupational specialty. She placed first at the U.S. Army Medical Readiness Command Best Leader Competition, then the Soldier helped lead her unit to top honors in the 2022 U.S. Army Medical Command’s Best Squad competition, an annual contest that tests Soldiers’ tactical and technical abilities in the field.
As a holistic health and fitness, or H2F, performance dietitian, Adams helps lead a servicewide effort to transform Soldier health. As part of an H2F team embedded with the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, Adams educated paratroopers on how they can optimize their performance in the field. Her team, one of 66 brigades with an H2F team in the Army, monitored Soldier fitness levels, sleep quality, diet and mental readiness. They also met with Soldiers to set fitness and nutrition goals.
Adams recently accepted an assignment to become the performance dietitian for the Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. There, she will monitor and track the health of the Army’s most elite Soldiers.
“Her continued success in the military, it's who she is,” Thompson said. “It's attributed to her drive and her willingness to be her best self.”
Putting knowledge into practice
Her physical fitness and endurance kept her in contention for roster spots among her more skilled and athletically gifted peers. During the 2023 Armed Forces Women’s Basketball Championship at Fort Benning, Georgia, Adams hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to seal a 56-54 win over Navy, helping her earn the trust of the coaching staff.
Adams took a hiatus from the team in 2024 to attend the Army’s Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, which was followed by an unplanned hiatus when the nationwide government shutdown forced the eventual cancellation of the 2025 Armed Forces Basketball Championship.
Playing five games in five days during the 2026 tournament at Camp Pendleton took its toll on her body, Adams said, adding, “You feel that.”
Fortunately, she put her knowledge of rest and recovery to the test, although Army still fell to the All-Air Force women’s basketball team in a 73-52 loss in the championship.
When Adams speaks to elite Soldiers about health and fitness, she cites her own athletic journey, both as a Soldier and as an athlete.
“I preach healthy eating, and performance nutrition, and fueling your body and fitness,” she said. “And … I get to live it. I don't just necessarily teach it, educate on it, talk to patients. I also kind of embody that. I think applying what I love and what my passion is, even just, you know, as a Soldier-athlete, is fun.”