DIGITAL GCU Today AUG issue

2 2 • GCU MAGAZ I NE playing pro and, finally, a coach who made a hometown return last year as the women’s basketball head coach at Grand Canyon University. Her excellence could have been in tennis. Or track. Or dance. Or saxophone. Or academia. Nicole constantly was exposed to opportunities and incentives as the only child of an untiring mother who worked 30 years in Phoenix Parks and Recreation and a motivating father, Lawrence, who worked 34 years in Maricopa County Juvenile Probation. But she kept gravitating to basketball. She had the pull of a hoop her father installed in their south Phoenix driveway for her 10th birthday. There were the tugs of the basketball games she saw, mimicked and joined while her mother worked at Desert West Community Center, just 7 miles southwest of GCU. “I appreciate that so much more now, being older and having perspective,” Nicole said. “Not every kid gets a chance to go do karate, try tennis, play in a basketball league year-round and do art. I’m so lucky that I did.” It turned Nicole into a well-rounded, elite student- athlete who earned a spot in the National Federation of State High School Associations Hall of Fame in July. Variety of sports Standout youth athletes often specialize in one sport, but the Powells never created a master plan for greatness. Nicole was allowed to pursue her curiosities and carry out her zest for success and challenges. “Our fun family time was to go to the park at night – go walking, go to the track, go play tennis,” Nicole said. “We loved to go shoot hoops as a family.” She thrived across the spectrum, but family vacations were tied to tennis tournaments throughout her preteen years. There was a hint that basketball could overtake tennis when Nicole came home upset because she had been denied a tryout for her junior high basketball team… in fourth grade. The Powells received permission, and a five-year junior high career was born. Nicole Powell was an All-American at Stanford and won a championship in theWNBA, but then there’s the equally memorable photo from years earlier: She met DanMajerle long before she got to coach alongside him at GCU. photos courtesy nicole powell