Indiana University Athletics
Mike Powell: Man of Service
2/6/2020 3:58:00 PM | Wrestling
When Mike Powell was five years old he was jumping off the walls and his father saw an ad in the paper for a local wrestling club. Little did he know at the time that would shape the rest of his life.
Powell, an Indiana wrestling alum, grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, and at the age of five joined the Junior Huskies club. The next youngest kids were 9 and 10 years old. In high school he would train in the summer against college kids, without even knowing it, instilling a work ethic and grit in him.
His dad, who never wrestled, but was a great athlete and took pride in his sons' success and the bond they formed had a saying that Powell would use in the future as a coach.
"You don't get better pounding on guys, you get better when you are getting pounded on."
Powell was an active kid and participated in soccer, football, baseball, water skiing and snow skiing in his youth. He didn't specialize in wrestling until high school.
His work culminated in his senior year at Oak Park and River Forest High School where he went 42-0 and was crowned the 1994 state champion at 171 pounds.
For Powell wrestling goes far beyond wins and losses. He compared wrestling to half ancient martial arts and half sports.
"There is nothing in youth athletics that is on the level of wrestling," Powell said. "The amount of discipline, the amount of self-control, the amount of emotional control necessary is incredible and its unparalleled."
He described the day in the life of a 16-year-old dedicated wrestler, from waking up and eating a breakfast like egg whites and spinach that no one your age would contemplate. He worked out before school, went to class, ate chicken and kale for lunch when his friends were eating pizza. A two-hour intense practice after school, then get on the treadmill to get those last couple of pounds off. That is just the preparation for competition.
"You learn humility and learn to be humble and you learn to self-reflect in a way if you are coached right and parented right you take with you for the rest of your life," Powell reflected.
After high school, Powell continued his career at IU, where he earned All-America honors with a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Championships in 1996.
The next three years he would call lack luster by his standards and a wasted opportunity as he never returned to the podium. The lessons he learned would set him on a course to making an impact on others.
"One of the greatest things I learned in wrestling was, my career did not go the way it should have gone at IU, or could have gone," Powell said. I blew it. It took a long time for me to admit that it wasn't injuries or coaching, it was all on me. It was a lack of discipline. In my early adulthood, after I graduated IU I said to myself, this is on you buddy, you own this and now that opportunity has passed. I vowed to never miss out on another opportunity where I didn't give everything I had to it."
After graduation Powell coached at Oak Park as an assistant from 1999-2004 before taking over as head coach in 2005. In the next 10 years he would lead the Huskies to two dual team state championships and a dual team runner-up finish. He coached 10 individual state champions and 31 all-state wrestlers and tallied an overall dual meet record of 213-44.
In 2009, Powell was diagnosed with polymyositis. This chronic inflammation of the muscles is a progressive autoimmune disease that affected the physical aspects of his coaching duties. The disease forces the body's immune system to attack rather than protect. Doctors don't know what causes it or how to cure it, but Powell persevered in spite of the greatest physical challenge of his life.
Since the diagnosis, Powell has inspired thousands with his courageous attitude toward the disease. In 2012, ESPN released an E:60 feature presentation entitled "In Relentless Pursuit: Mike Powell's Fight." Sports Illustrated ran a feature-length story called "Man in Full" by Chris Ballard. Both stories brought positive recognition to the sport and awareness to the challenges that Powell faced as the head wrestling coach of a high school program.
Powell stepped down as head wrestling coach at Oak Park in 2014, but stayed involved and is now leading a new venture having an impact on thousands of kids in the Chicago area. In 2015 Mike earned the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Medal of Courage Award.
In 2018 Powell was announced as the Executive Director of Beat the Streets Chicago. Beat the Streets Chicago is a program dedicated to improving the lives of children and has helped hundreds of Chicago's youth for over 20 years to build character, discipline and self-esteem though their participation in wrestling.
When Powell took over, the program had 40 kids. Two years later, there are over 2,000 participants.
The program gives kids a brotherhood and is geared towards building them into life champions. There are youth groups, mentoring, tutoring and the teaching of life skills.
Powell has seen kids go from being troubled in high school to achieving academic and athletic success in college. One kid, who Powell described as a punk and screwed up in high school, earned a master's degree and is competing for a spot on the Olympic team. If he doesn't make the team, he plans to enroll in the Peace Corps.
Powell loves his coaches and is hoping to make a similar impact on the kids he mentors.
"If I could have just a fraction of the impact on a couple of kids that my coaches had on me then it would be a worthwhile life," Powell said.
A big part of the motivation for Powell and his support network comes from his family. His wife Elizabeth is incredibly supportive and he calls her an inspiration. Elizabeth excels in a career in law, often dominated by older men and lives with grit, excellence and perseverance.
Mike and Elizabeth have two boys, a six-month-old Sammy and five-year-old Harry. Mike knows they are going to grow up in a privileged life, but he wants them to know there are things more important than staying at a nice hotel on vacation or material possessions.
"You find time and effort and resources into making the world a better place," Powell said. "I want them to know their father was a man of service and did his part to try to make our corner of the world a little bit better."
Powell recently returned to his alma mater Indiana University, for an IU wrestling alumni night. He said he had an amazing time catching up with friends and former teammates and is proud of the wrestling program under head coach Angel Escobedo and his former teammate and current associate head coach Mike Dixon.
"I love it. Character first. I've been watching from afar. I know Mike Dixon very well and know Angel a little bit, but his reputation proceeds him as a man of character. It was the hardest I've seen an IU team wrestle in a long time. The kids were grinding out wins and wrestling hard. I'm excited about the future of IU wrestling."
For Powell, he learned the hard way and said if he could share something with current IU wrestlers it would be this: you only get one chance.
"If you live a full life you are going to live until 80 years old and you stop being an athlete at 23," Powell said. "As a 44-year-old I have a lot of regrets in my life. One of the biggest is I never gave myself a chance to be great as a young man. I wasted a lot of time and a lot of years being undisciplined. Just don't pass up the opportunity. Be great in every endeavor, in everything you do."
Wrestling has taught Powell many lessons in life and he is in turn passing those lessons along and touching many lives.
"I live an unbelievably fulfilled life," he said. "I am unbelievably grateful and happy and that is because of wrestling."
Powell, an Indiana wrestling alum, grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, and at the age of five joined the Junior Huskies club. The next youngest kids were 9 and 10 years old. In high school he would train in the summer against college kids, without even knowing it, instilling a work ethic and grit in him.
His dad, who never wrestled, but was a great athlete and took pride in his sons' success and the bond they formed had a saying that Powell would use in the future as a coach.
"You don't get better pounding on guys, you get better when you are getting pounded on."
Powell was an active kid and participated in soccer, football, baseball, water skiing and snow skiing in his youth. He didn't specialize in wrestling until high school.
His work culminated in his senior year at Oak Park and River Forest High School where he went 42-0 and was crowned the 1994 state champion at 171 pounds.
For Powell wrestling goes far beyond wins and losses. He compared wrestling to half ancient martial arts and half sports.
"There is nothing in youth athletics that is on the level of wrestling," Powell said. "The amount of discipline, the amount of self-control, the amount of emotional control necessary is incredible and its unparalleled."
He described the day in the life of a 16-year-old dedicated wrestler, from waking up and eating a breakfast like egg whites and spinach that no one your age would contemplate. He worked out before school, went to class, ate chicken and kale for lunch when his friends were eating pizza. A two-hour intense practice after school, then get on the treadmill to get those last couple of pounds off. That is just the preparation for competition.
"You learn humility and learn to be humble and you learn to self-reflect in a way if you are coached right and parented right you take with you for the rest of your life," Powell reflected.
After high school, Powell continued his career at IU, where he earned All-America honors with a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Championships in 1996.
The next three years he would call lack luster by his standards and a wasted opportunity as he never returned to the podium. The lessons he learned would set him on a course to making an impact on others.
"One of the greatest things I learned in wrestling was, my career did not go the way it should have gone at IU, or could have gone," Powell said. I blew it. It took a long time for me to admit that it wasn't injuries or coaching, it was all on me. It was a lack of discipline. In my early adulthood, after I graduated IU I said to myself, this is on you buddy, you own this and now that opportunity has passed. I vowed to never miss out on another opportunity where I didn't give everything I had to it."
After graduation Powell coached at Oak Park as an assistant from 1999-2004 before taking over as head coach in 2005. In the next 10 years he would lead the Huskies to two dual team state championships and a dual team runner-up finish. He coached 10 individual state champions and 31 all-state wrestlers and tallied an overall dual meet record of 213-44.
In 2009, Powell was diagnosed with polymyositis. This chronic inflammation of the muscles is a progressive autoimmune disease that affected the physical aspects of his coaching duties. The disease forces the body's immune system to attack rather than protect. Doctors don't know what causes it or how to cure it, but Powell persevered in spite of the greatest physical challenge of his life.
Since the diagnosis, Powell has inspired thousands with his courageous attitude toward the disease. In 2012, ESPN released an E:60 feature presentation entitled "In Relentless Pursuit: Mike Powell's Fight." Sports Illustrated ran a feature-length story called "Man in Full" by Chris Ballard. Both stories brought positive recognition to the sport and awareness to the challenges that Powell faced as the head wrestling coach of a high school program.
Powell stepped down as head wrestling coach at Oak Park in 2014, but stayed involved and is now leading a new venture having an impact on thousands of kids in the Chicago area. In 2015 Mike earned the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Medal of Courage Award.
In 2018 Powell was announced as the Executive Director of Beat the Streets Chicago. Beat the Streets Chicago is a program dedicated to improving the lives of children and has helped hundreds of Chicago's youth for over 20 years to build character, discipline and self-esteem though their participation in wrestling.
When Powell took over, the program had 40 kids. Two years later, there are over 2,000 participants.
The program gives kids a brotherhood and is geared towards building them into life champions. There are youth groups, mentoring, tutoring and the teaching of life skills.
Powell has seen kids go from being troubled in high school to achieving academic and athletic success in college. One kid, who Powell described as a punk and screwed up in high school, earned a master's degree and is competing for a spot on the Olympic team. If he doesn't make the team, he plans to enroll in the Peace Corps.
Powell loves his coaches and is hoping to make a similar impact on the kids he mentors.
"If I could have just a fraction of the impact on a couple of kids that my coaches had on me then it would be a worthwhile life," Powell said.
A big part of the motivation for Powell and his support network comes from his family. His wife Elizabeth is incredibly supportive and he calls her an inspiration. Elizabeth excels in a career in law, often dominated by older men and lives with grit, excellence and perseverance.
Mike and Elizabeth have two boys, a six-month-old Sammy and five-year-old Harry. Mike knows they are going to grow up in a privileged life, but he wants them to know there are things more important than staying at a nice hotel on vacation or material possessions.
"You find time and effort and resources into making the world a better place," Powell said. "I want them to know their father was a man of service and did his part to try to make our corner of the world a little bit better."
Powell recently returned to his alma mater Indiana University, for an IU wrestling alumni night. He said he had an amazing time catching up with friends and former teammates and is proud of the wrestling program under head coach Angel Escobedo and his former teammate and current associate head coach Mike Dixon.
"I love it. Character first. I've been watching from afar. I know Mike Dixon very well and know Angel a little bit, but his reputation proceeds him as a man of character. It was the hardest I've seen an IU team wrestle in a long time. The kids were grinding out wins and wrestling hard. I'm excited about the future of IU wrestling."
For Powell, he learned the hard way and said if he could share something with current IU wrestlers it would be this: you only get one chance.
"If you live a full life you are going to live until 80 years old and you stop being an athlete at 23," Powell said. "As a 44-year-old I have a lot of regrets in my life. One of the biggest is I never gave myself a chance to be great as a young man. I wasted a lot of time and a lot of years being undisciplined. Just don't pass up the opportunity. Be great in every endeavor, in everything you do."
Wrestling has taught Powell many lessons in life and he is in turn passing those lessons along and touching many lives.
"I live an unbelievably fulfilled life," he said. "I am unbelievably grateful and happy and that is because of wrestling."
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