by Ryan Sones
Staff Writer
Easily working out with 225 pounds on the bench press is Ken Powell. He is a father, husband, student, football coach, alcohol and drug rehabilitation specialist and, at 37, a football player for the University of La Verne Leopards. No, he is not one of the coaches – he is a running back.
Powell is only one of the many new additions to each and every football team across the nation this year. Every year, football teams gets new players at the beginning of each new season. However, they are usually not older than the head coach or perhaps old enough to be a father of his own teammates.
Born in Sun Valley, Calif., the youngest of four siblings, Powell grew up with strong family ties. Attending Los Angeles Poly High School, Powell was an exceptional student athlete, graduating with the class of 1977.
His first introduction to football was at the age of 9, when he played for the Sun Valley Falcons Pop Warner football team. As offensive guard he quickly made the transition to fullback and outside linebacker. His presence on the field came during high school competition when he was the star fullback and linebacker. The two positions, as well as playing baseball, took Powell to all-league teams three consecutive years.
Powell had the opportunity to play football for Glendale College, where he gained respect as one of the better players on field. After two seasons, he left for Linfield College in Oregon to play out the rest of his eligibility.
Two days before his final season at Linfield in 1988, Powell was in an auto accident. The late-summer accident would claim the feeling in two of his toes, making him sit out the final season of his career, or so it would seem.
After the accident, Powell’s life began to change. He became an alcoholic and began flirting with other drugs, such as cocaine and marijuana.
Powell’s refuge of the playing field was no longer there, and he now found solace in his drug dependencies. He became so dependent that he left Linfield unfinished and became a car salesman for seven years.
During that time, Powell had many ups and downs, on what he called “a roller coaster ride through life, with no guard rails, over a never-ending abyss.”
The downs were as low as possible, until finally he derailed and hit rock bottom. That bottom had bars, and Powell found himself in jail for almost two years.
During his stay in jail, Powell decided that he could change. The light once again flickered at the end of the tunnel for him. With the rehabilitation came a new line of sight for Ken Powell. He had evolved from the monster he had created through serious meditation and rehabilitation in prison.
Powell wrote in a 1991 personality profile, “I spent a great deal of time in meditation. It did not happen overnight, but through a great deal of hard work and introspection I was able to realize what I had become and what it would take to change my life.”
He decided to take classes at Glendale College and become an alcohol and drug rehabilitation specialist. It was during this time when friends on the Glendale College football staff decided to have Powell back on the team as a coach.
He was overwhelmed at the opportunity to get back in on what was so dear to him. Football had been the mainstay of Powell’s adolescent life and the void of the past seven years had a chance not only to be filled, but reborn.
Powell’s life had done a 180-degree turn, and there was nothing but green grass underneath his huge steps forward.
Powell was the running back, linebacker coach, and special teams coordinator at Glendale from 1992 to 1995. He then decided to pursue a teaching career, and found himself at the University of La Verne.
While taking classes at ULV for his bachelor’s in physical education, he met Assistant Athletic Director Rex Huigens and head football coach Don Morel. During a few casual conversations between the three, it was found that Powell had one year of eligibility left on his football career as a player.
Powell’s first thoughts were subtle until he really began thinking about it. He talked with his coaching staff at Glendale College to see their thoughts on the situation and if they thought he should play or try to play again. The staff at Glendale told Powell that playing would be the best thing ever for him and his road to sobriety.
It was January 1996, and Powell had made the decision to go after the longshot and try out for the team at ULV. Powell was physically healthy and in shape, and he figured that it would just take a few months in the gym to prepare for his return to the gridiron.
Five foot, 10 inches and all 232 pounds of Powell were out for three-a-day try-outs for the 1996 ULV football season. And after three-a-days stood all Powell, proud and self deserving, making the ULV football squad tainted with an unsurmountable pain in his lower legs due to shin splints.
“I really didn’t have any second thoughts about going out for the team, maybe just some reservations on how my body would handle it,” said Powell.
People may find that believe, coming from the same guy that on one afternoon practice, while coaching at Glendale, confronted his players to step it up one week and find some intensity, after they lost a sure-win game a few days earlier. He confronted his players by lining up the linebackers in a tackling drill with himself.
The only thing odd about this tackling drill was that Powell had no pads on at all, just his T-shirt, coaches shorts, and a slight bit of insanity. At the end of the drill, Powell was left standing on the field bleeding, while players mouth’s were left agape. Powell simply replied, “Now hustle on up and get some water and get back over here!”
“I just like football, I like to be out there hitting people. It’s fun,” said Powell.
“Ken Powell is a good football player. He is dedicated, a very hard worker and mildly insane,” said Morel.
Morel also added, “He is certainly a mature football player that can bring a lot of experience to the team, but for anyone to take that type of punishment at this point of his life is definitely mildly insane.”
Powell was accepted by the other players on the team. He has heard the comments of “Hi, coach” or “How’s it going, grandpa?” all in jokingly manners, but, all in all, Powell is having a great time out on the field again.
“This guy has the heart of a lion. He plays iron-head football, and he reminds me of someone mean like Mike Ditka. Just put the age to the side, he is an awesome player, and he helps out the team a lot,” said senior running back Anthony Rice.
Powell reassured himself that he did come here to finish his bachelor’s degree, and on top of it all, he will be the first in his family to do so.
“Education was definitely the reason I came to La Verne. Football was the icing on the cake,” said Powell.
In the team’s opening loss to Azusa Pacific, Powell had more than 20 friends and family in attendance to see his rebirth on the field.
“My entire spirit and personality have undergone, and are still involved in, a metamorphosis. This change is still underway, but I feel a hell of a lot better about what I represent today, than what I represented seventeen months ago,” wrote Powell in his 1991 personality profile.
Powell feels he is definitely on the right track, and is proud to say, “I have been sober since 1987.”
Ryan Sones
