University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Powell Enjoys the Silence
July 1, 2002 | Football
July 1, 2002
by Adam Lucas Tar Heel Monthly
"You hear that?" North Carolina running backs coach Andre' Powell says, standing near the tip of his 19-foot bass boat.
There is not a sound, just the occasional wisp of leaves on the occasion of a rare breeze and the "Whizzz, whirrrrrrr" of his rod and reel as they plunge into the Eno River. You admit that, quite frankly, you don't hear anything.
"That's it," he says. "Absolutely nothing."
If only Willie Parker or Madison Hedgecock could see their position coach out on the river, they would not recognize the man who will make their lives very difficult when two-a-day practices begin in August. On the football field, the 35-year-old Powell can be a powder keg. On the river, he can fish from sunup to sundown and barely utter a phrase.
At times, the only thing breaking the silence is an exasperated, "Oh, Lord," when his cast (for the record, he uses G. Loomis rods and Fat-A Bomber crank bait) makes the unfortunate mistake of wrapping itself around a log.
As he angles his boat nearer the shore-he informs the uneducated passengers that this is known as "bumping the stumps"-he admits that the football field and the fishing hole are polar opposites.
"I'd say that they are," he says. "People pay a hundred dollars an hour to go talk to somebody about their problems. I don't need to do that. I've got my therapy right here."
His therapy has taken him to four fishing tournaments already this year, with more on the horizon. On this day, the quest is a little simpler. The only challenge is to catch a fish impressive enough to be photographed with, something that doesn't look like a minnow.
It is not for the benefit of his audience. Sportswriters are not known as the heartiest of sportsmen. These are people who are used to their meals being catered and delivered to their jobsite. On the heartiness scale, the average sportswriter rates somewhere between Zsa Zsa Gabor and a pampered poodle.
Football coaches, on the other hand, rank somewhere between the Crocodile Hunter and a lumberjack.
So Powell doesn't have to try to impress his audience, which loses all track of what he's saying somewhere in the middle of the 10-minute dissertation on the differences between jig and crank bait. He's fishing for himself, which means he is not impressed when he pulls a two-pound bass out of the river about an hour into the trip.
"That's nothing," he says. "That's an 'Attaboy' fish. If you take that fish to the weigh-in scales at a tournament, all you'll get is an 'Attaboy.'"
Another attaboy fish follows in short succession, with a third about 20 minutes later. Then a dry spell hits, which gives the former Indiana University fullback time to expand on his playing career.
"I didn't make mental errors, and I was tough," he says. "I had visions of being a great tailback at Indiana, but they already had plenty of those. We weren't real fancy, and I just lined up and got after it."
Getting after it was something that came naturally to the product of Lockhart, South Carolina. Powell's father was a farmer, and one fall day a schoolteacher asked her class to describe where they had gone on their summer vacation. A young Andre' Powell was the third student to report, and he informed the class that he had gone to all sorts of scenic destinations, such as Union and Spartanburg.
It didn't take him long to realize that his other classmates had been to far more worldly places, and shortly after that, he says, "I decided that I had baled my last bale of hay."
As if to accentuate the point, his line tightens and another fish has taken the bait. This one is more respectable, worthy of being photographed. He throws in the back of the boat-in a water-filled holding bin that it turns out is not called a "fish vault" but a live well, and there are time for a few more casts.
He pilots the boat back towards a fallen tree, convinced that that's where all the fish are. And as he tosses his line back into the water, there is the unmistakable sound of silence.
