Completed Event: Women's Basketball versus San Diego State on February 4, 2026 , Win , 57, to, 44
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vs San Diego State
W 57-44
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Coro: Powell rose on Phoenix courts
8/9/2018 10:20:00 AM | Women's Basketball, Paul Coro
GCU coach had access to, acumen for many sports
The ongoing legend of Nicole Powell, which ranges from child prodigy to a national hall of fame, could have been the tale of a tennis phenom.
She was a baby in a courtside carrier with parents checking on her between volleys until she was mobile enough to be their ball girl.
She was a girl whose serves hit the backstop as opponents began their return swings, prompting parents to complain that Powell served too hard.
"She was as good as the Williams sisters," said her mother, Ruth, making a Serena and Venus Williams comparison that is akin to saying her daughter could have outsung Christina Aguilera in the 1990s. "Her serve was probably better than theirs at that time."
Instead, Nicole presides over a different court.
She became the greatest female high school basketball player in Arizona history, an All-American basketball star at Stanford, a WNBA All-Star, an 11-year playing pro and, finally, a coach who made a hometown return last year as the women's basketball head coach at Grand Canyon.
Her excellence could have been in tennis. Or 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 seven 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 High School Sports 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 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 would return to master 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 run 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.
New wave
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 tuned 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.
Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
She was a baby in a courtside carrier with parents checking on her between volleys until she was mobile enough to be their ball girl.
She was a girl whose serves hit the backstop as opponents began their return swings, prompting parents to complain that Powell served too hard.
"She was as good as the Williams sisters," said her mother, Ruth, making a Serena and Venus Williams comparison that is akin to saying her daughter could have outsung Christina Aguilera in the 1990s. "Her serve was probably better than theirs at that time."
Instead, Nicole presides over a different court.
She became the greatest female high school basketball player in Arizona history, an All-American basketball star at Stanford, a WNBA All-Star, an 11-year playing pro and, finally, a coach who made a hometown return last year as the women's basketball head coach at Grand Canyon.
Her excellence could have been in tennis. Or 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 seven 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 High School Sports 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 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 would return to master 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 run 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.
New wave
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 tuned 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.
Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
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