DIGITAL GCU Today AUG issue

GCU MAGAZ I NE • 23 Nicole played with boys in youth leagues, including a team with future NFL receiver Bobby Wade. She swiftly won tennis matches so that she could get to a basketball tourney on time. In high school, she played on the junior varsity boys basketball team in a summer league. At home, Powell laid out her basketball trading cards on the living room floor as she watched NBA games, sorting the cards by names, teams, favorites, etc. Once Lawrence installed the hoop and spray-painted a 3-point line, team names and family initials on the driveway (“atrocious looking,” Ruth said), Nicole rarely came off the court whether she was at school, home or her mother’s workplace. “Mom, Dad, come see this new move!” Nicole would say as she burst into the house. They watched approvingly before Lawrence added, “But you can’t do it with your left hand.” Nicole returned to the court until she mastered the move with her off-hand. Busy schedule Ruth drove like an Uber chauffeur, picking up Nicole from school in south Phoenix, taking her to the Phoenix Tennis Center in central Phoenix and going to and from her work post in west Phoenix. Because city events ran late, Nicole spent many nights at the Desert West gym, emulating the moves of men playing pickup basketball and squeezing in her shots as their action went end to end. “I was just having a great time,” Nicole said. “I thought it was normal. I spent so much time there. Gym, big park, playground, community center. It was an integral part of my life. I was so lucky as a kid.” The Powells never pondered sending Nicole off to a youth tennis academy. Girls club basketball was barely a thing, and women’s basketball college scholarships were an unknown to the Powells until her first letter came. Instead, Nicole prospered from the cross-training of karate and ballet. She benefited from the hand-eye coordination and lateral footwork of tennis. She learned leadership and teamwork from the diverse perspectives of her basketball, tennis, badminton, cross country and track and field teams while earning straight A’s at Mountain Pointe High School. Ruth and Lawrence played basketball, but neither played beyond high school in Iowa and Arkansas, respectively. Nicole was basketball- blessed to be 6-foot-2, but the rest came from her eating up rows of opportunities like Ms. Pac-Man gobbling basketballs. “She’d gone with me when I went shopping for the prizes for the Juneteenth 3-point contest,” Ruth said. “When she saw that Michael Jordan backboard that you put on your bedroom door … saliva. She practiced and practiced and beat all the men. She was 12.” That passion and purpose foretold how she became The Arizona Republic Girls Basketball Player of the Century, a two-time finalist for the Naismith Award (NCAA’s player of the year) and a woman who could make 20 consecutive shots on a leasing office mini-hoop to earn a rent discount. Newwave As a pro who won the 2005 WNBA championship in Sacramento and was a 2009 All-Star, Powell was part of a new wave of taller women’s players with guard abilities. “I had the skills because I played one-on-one all the time,” Nicole said. “I was at the park playing ‘21’ all the time. You have to dribble through 13 kids, get your shot off and be competitive.” It was not just a playing career. It was a burgeoning basketball career. Nicole rarely rested in games. When she did, she went to the end of the bench and put a towel over her head. Lawrence noticed she was tuning out of the game and huddles. “Wouldn’t it be great to work on a college campus the rest of your adult life?” Lawrence told Nicole. “Working with kids. Wouldn’t that be fun? You love basketball. You’d teach basketball. You’d stay young forever.” Nicole learned her teammates’ roles better than they did. She became a Gonzaga assistant coach while playing in the WNBA. When Gonzaga played at Stanford, a video tribute to Nicole was shown and a Zags player commented, “You were pretty good, Coach.” “I’m still playing,” Nicole said. She is all coach now. She took over GCU as it entered full Division I membership and exceeded expectations with a third-place finish in the Western Athletic Conference last year. “I look back at my history and I know I’m prepared for this moment,” 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.” —Nicole Powell