“The backyard was where we dreamed and experimented,” Mike Powell s On Their Own
The Powells competed at everything: at an all-you-can-eat restaurant buffet; comparing their youth baseball stats with Casey as pitcher and Ryan as catcher; or when Casey, 10, and Ryan, 8, played in their first organized lacrosse league at Duffy Fairgrounds in Watertown. It was a box league on a polished cement floor.
After three nights of watching her two oldest sons play, wearing knee pads and Casey wearing Chuck Taylors on his feet, Mike Green, who ran the league and coached at SUNY Canton, told Larry and Susan that their kids were going to be All-Americans. “You think they’re that good?” Susan Powell asked her husband after dropping Casey and Ryan off one night. “I have no idea,” Larry Powell replied. “We saw how much they loved to play, but we had no idea if they were good or not because we had no one to compare them with,” Susan Powell said. “We didn’t make films or keep stats. We didn’t know about scholarships or that being good at lacrosse could be so valuable. We didn’t realize how much of a part it would play in their lives, which was to our benefit. It could have maybe ruined the whole thing.” They might not have realized, but Casey did, scanning the local newspaper, The Watertown Daily Times, for scores from his team, sponsored by a local dry cleaner. “If we had big games, we’d look,” Casey Powell said. “It would say Parkview Cleaners, and then Casey Powell scored six goals and Ryan Powell had four.”
The Powell brothers combined to capture four NCAA titles at Syracuse, with Mike (right) winning two and Ryan (left) one.
fired shots on Mike all day and night. They often used tennis balls, which helped develop soft hands. Lacrosse balls were rare. If a shot went over the tall wooden fence in the backyard of 25 North
Jefferson Street, the Powells needed it back. So Mike, then 7, was sent up and over using a pool ladder. Casey and Ryan counted to 11, the estimated number of seconds before the angry dog would make things too dangerous. “That’s what made Mike so fast,” Susan Powell said. “He was scared of the dog.” The mix of Casey, a demanding perfectionist, and
Ryan, more of jokester but still determined, could lead to arguments during playing sessions, but it all proved worth it, their skills honed on their own.
“The backyard was full within a month, with every kid in the neighborhood,” said Gretchen Powell, the oldest of five siblings. Friends like Jason Coffman, who still owns the NCAA career points record of 451, set at Salisbury from 1993 to 1996, joined the fray.
“The backyard was where we dreamed and experimented,” said Mike Powell, who was the quiet, little rebel of the group that came out of nowhere, according to his older sister. “There were no rules, coaches or boundaries. It was the game in its purest form. Backyard ball directly shaped how we played and ultimately approach lacrosse.”
36 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » October 2015 A Publication of US Lacrosse
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