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Saturday, October 4, 2008
Tapping Talent: Bart Powell
Greater Louisville, KY
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By: Betty Coffman, VYPE
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Photo(s) By: Betty Coffman
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In his third year as Floyd Central High School’s volleyball coach, Powell has adapted his game to Southern Indiana with a team ranked in the state’s top 10.
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“You have to believe in yourself. You have to give everything you’ve got. You’ve got to show up. You’ve got to be confident. Negative thoughts in your brain create negative play.”
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VYPE: What brought you to Southern Indiana?
Powell: I’m originally from Northern Indiana. My parents were both gone and run my own business and I could pretty much travel wherever I wanted to live. My wife’s from here and I like the area and I hated the snow. So we came down here—and I love it.
VYPE: How did you get involved in coaching?
Powell: I actually started playing volleyball in high school at 14—that was 35 years ago. I played in college at Indiana State. I was out of college a couple of years and a buddy said, “I’ve been offered the head coaching job at this high school. I’ll take it if you’ll be the co-head coach.” And I said, “Absolutely.”
I found it enjoyable and have continued to do it for 23 years.
VYPE: Your team is doing very well this year, ranked as high as fourth in the state. How have you brought the team to this level of success?
Powell: I’m not sure I had a whole lot to do with it. This Louisville area is just absolutely full of great club programs—Union, MAVA, KIVA—and my kids play all the time. So it’s not a matter of me teaching a lot because they all know the game. Most of them have been playing for five or six years, which is way ahead of northern Indiana, where we’d start them in seventh grade. And they have the club programs. From where I lived, the girls would have to travel between 60 and 75 miles to play good club ball. Here, they just travel 20 or 30 miles.
I was very fortunate to have gotten the job to begin with. I walked into a lot of talent, there’s no doubt about that. I just have to mold and shape it.
VYPE: How do you bring the team together?
Powell: I’ve always believed in team. I’ve got some great athletes and players who are going to go to Division 1 colleges, but volleyball is the ultimate team sport. In basketball, you can throw an inbounds pass and the guy can dribble it and create his own shot and score. In volleyball, it takes three people to make something good happen. So the hitters know that if those defensive players aren’t working hard back there, they’re not going to get to hit and the setter’s not going to get to set. I think they realize that it’s a team thing and we have to be a close-knit group. We do a lot of team activities and try to keep the group as close as we can.
VYPE: Who’s your biggest competition?
Powell: New Albany is a big conference rival and we’re actually in the same school corporation so they’re our biggest rival. Providence High School has a very good program. Outside of those teams, we have to go to Columbus or over towards Evansville to get the good competition [in Indiana].
I have the luxury of having some of the best schools in the country right across the river. Floyd Central did play one of those teams before I came. Now we’re up to six. We don’t play Assumption, but we play Mercy, Sacred Heart and Manual, Holy Cross, Presentation and Butler. So we don’t have to travel far, especially during the week.
VYPE: Do you think the kids should start playing earlier?
Powell: We run a club program through Floyd Central now, and we actually started them in fourth grade last year. We’re thinking of starting them in third grade this year. The earlier you start, the more you’re around it and the more you’re doing it, the better you’re going to be at it.
VYPE: How can kids play better?
Powell: Like any sport, it’s all very mental. If you think you can, you will. If you don’t think you can, you won’t. You have to believe in yourself. You have to give everything you’ve got. You’ve got to show up. You’ve got to be confident. Negative thoughts in your brain create negative play.
There’s this thing called cybervision where you see yourself doing something good. We work on that a little bit, and I really believe in it. Whether it’s hokey or not, I don’t know, but it seems to work.
VYPE: Who inspires you as a coach?
Powell: There are a lot of great coaches out there, and I try to emulate some of them. I was always a basketball guy and enjoyed watching Bob Knight coach. Regardless of his tirades, I think he was a brilliant coach and got a lot out of his kids.
I used to be kind of a psycho guy, and then I took over a program at a school called Maconaquah. When I took over, that program had lost 64 matches in a row. The first day I walked into the program, there were eight kids and they couldn’t pass the ball back and forth eight times. I went home and told my wife, “I’m not going to win a match.” She said, “You need to quit.” And I said, “No. If I’m going to be a very good volleyball coach down the road, I need to figure out whether I can do this.”
That first year we won one match. The next year we won five or six, the next year we won 17 and then we won 28 the fourth year. So I thought, maybe I can do this.
It taught me patience. I was really inspired and really into it, but coaching girls, you need patience.
VYPE: Does your family play?
Powell: I have one daughter and she’s involved with gymnastics and cheerleading. It frustrates me a little that she doesn’t play, but I’m not going to force her to play. She’s an athlete, and I know she could be a very good player. She’s been an individual sport person all of her life. She sees that if one person makes a team lose, it frustrates her. She doesn’t want to be that person that makes more than one person lose. If she messes up as an individual, then it’s on her own.
VYPE: Where do you want to be in five years?
Powell: This year’s team is exceptional. Will this opportunity ever come back around? I don’t know. I have the younger kids playing and the club programs in motion. My daughter will be a senior in high school in five years. I would hope that I’ll be still coaching and still motivated and still inspired, trying to be the best. I don’t show it as much as I used to, but I am still very competitive.
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