PEORIA -- Division-I coaches outnumber spectators in pockets of the courtside seating at the Illinois state basketball tournament. Illinois, Bradley, South Dakota, Northwestern are among the many schools represented. But among the scrum of coaches metaphorically boxing out for the talent in front of them, only one has boxed out for the Illini during a Final Four.
Program legend and power forward Roger "The Rev" Powell is an associate head coach at Vanderbilt these days after he moved from Valparaiso with head coach Bryce Drew. He may have exchanged an orange jersey for a white coaches windbreaker, but the mission of the former licensed minister's work is the same.
"For me, coaching is a ministry," he said. "It's a way to mentor a young man and it's a way to, you know, teach integrity through the game of basketball. That's the foundation of what basketball is built on. My ministry duties, although I'm not preaching on Sundays and doing the full-time ministry thing, I'm able to be a minister in just serving our players, serving our staff and you know using all the wisdom I have from the Word of God to help them become better men and it's been pretty cool seeing how, for the most part, that has translated to wins. So it's exciting to be able to flow in that while at the same time be a basketball coach and be competitive and drive kids to play the best of their abilities."
