Edmonds Coach Found Dead; Suicide Suspected

An Edmonds-Woodway High School coach who made national news when his adopted son was presented an award by President Bush at the White House is dead from an apparent suicide.

An assistant coach found Randy Stubbs, 35, dead at 10:30 p.m. Sunday at the old Edmonds High School athletic field, Edmonds police Sgt. John Holleman said yesterday.

Edmonds School District athletic director Kim Wilson said Stubbs was found in a shack where baseball equipment was stored.

Stubbs received national attention a few months ago when he and his adopted son, Adam Cornell-Stubbs, flew to Washington, D.C., to meet the president after Adam was named National Youth of the Year for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

"It's a shock out of the blue," said Edmonds-Woodway High head football coach Mike Anderson. "I saw Randy May 15 at the sports seniors awards banquet. I didn't think anything was amiss."

The Snohomish County medical examiner's office had not completed its examination and would not comment on Stubbs' death.

Stubbs had just finished his second year as head baseball coach at Edmonds-Woodway. He was also an assistant football coach under Anderson at the same school. Stubbs worked in an administrative job at Woodinville High School and was a part-time firefighter for the Kenmore Fire Department.

On Friday, Stubbs didn't show up for a shift at the fire station, said Capt. Rob McAuliffe. Calls to his apartment went unanswered, but since it was a shift that had been traded with someone else, McAuliffe said he assumed Stubbs had forgotten.

Although Stubbs had volunteered for the department for eight years, several firefighters said they didn't know him very well.

"When he came down here, he was business. It wasn't his time to socialize," said Rich Jones, a volunteer firefighter.

"He was kind of a mystery guy," said McAuliffe. "Now that we talk about him, nobody really knows that much about him, even though he's been here for eight years."

Scott Beahan, another volunteer, felt Stubbs had been more withdrawn in the past few months. "You could tell that something might have been bothering him," Beahan said. "I didn't want to pry, but now I kind of wish I had."

It was in September that Stubbs' adopted son, a Woodinville High honor student, met Bush, who presented him with a plaque. Adam also received a $15,000 scholarship from the Reader's Digest Association.

Stubbs and Adam received special attention in the media because Stubbs was a single parent when he adopted Adam at the age of 14.

Adam grew up in Whatcom County. When he was 4, his mother suffered severe brain damage in a car accident. Adam's biological father abandoned the family, leaving Adam in charge of two younger brothers and a younger sister.

When neighbors contacted officials, the children were placed in separate foster homes. Adam went through 15 foster homes before being adopted by Stubbs, who met him at a party sponsored by the Northwest Adoption Exchange.

Adam's younger sister, Alex Hurlbert, who has stayed very close to her brother despite being adopted by another family, believed Stubbs had been a good parent to her brother.

Although Stubbs was "really quiet and kind of withdrawn from everything," she said, he seemed to really care about what happened to Adam.

"I think he really built up Adam's self-confidence and everything," said Alex, 15.

But Alex also felt anger toward Stubbs for creating yet another hardship for her brother.

Her adoptive parents have now volunteered to help pay Adam's college expenses when he enrolls at American University in Washington, D.C., in the fall, she said.

While she has been with the same family since she was 7, Alex said, this is the first stable home her brother has known.

"I feel so bad for him," she said. "I got lucky, I got the really great parents, and he had it tough. If I could figure out a way to take his pain, I would."

Alex spent the day with her brother, who was "still in shock." But her brother has overcome many troubles in his lifetime, she said.

Alex said Adam had moved out of Stubbs' apartment Wednesday into his own place for the summer.

In an interview in September, Stubbs admitted that he and Adam had had to work hard to adjust to one another.

"Adam managed to do just about everything he could to find out if this was going to be a solid thing or not," Stubbs had said.