North Carolina
The Prince of Pittsboro: UNC commit Drake Powell's final season at Northwood High School
Drake Powell is one of the top high school basketball players in the country. Next year the Pittsboro native will play for his dream school UNC, but this season he had unfinished business at Northwood High School. WRAL's Pat Welter followed Drake and the Northwood Chargers on their quest for a state title this season. The Prince of Pittsboro is a documentary that takes you behind the scenes of their most emotional moments and shows a side of Drake and his head coach Matt Brown that you've never seen.
Hey, how are you? Thank you. Enjoy the ball game. Drake Powell is a player. He is a silent killer. He's very nice off the court. Very polite. But once he gets on that court, he will do anything and everything to win that ball game, Drake is obviously one of the best athletes has ever been in Northwoods history and everybody come to see Drake Drake been the man ever since he was in high school, he had put Chatham County in a place that they have never been before. Carolina is going to get a great kid. Go to heels. Yeah, deal. Oh, let's go. Good, good. He's the type of guy whose work ethic is relentless. His drive is unmatched. I mean, that's why I think he's the best two way player in the country. That's why he's gonna be the best player out of Northwood ever, uh, out of Chatham County ever. Greg Powell was elected as a mcdonald's all American play professional basketball, be an NBA all star. That sort of drive that he has. It's, it comes once in a lifetime. Hi. My name is Drake Powell and I'm a senior at Northwood High school. So I first got into basketball by, um, going to the Chatham County Parks and rex, you know, their organization, I started playing since I was five and just loved it ever since, uh, his talents they presented early, early on how early, like five, 556 years old, his brother was already playing travel, um, travel basketball. At this time, they were playing in this, um, travel tournament in Durham. They didn't have enough players. So they asked Drake to play on the team. Drake was probably a 3rd, 4th grader at the time and this was an eighth grade team. He embraced the opportunity going into the tournament. I just wanted to find a way where I could, you know, impact winning. He was like, you know, shooting three pointers, you know, talking to the coach, the op opposing coach coach was like what this is what you do. Yeah, they were setting plays for him. It was double stack, Drake. Do you remember the play, double stack, Drake? I do remember the play double stacked Drake. That was um one of my favorites actually because that's what when I get to shoot the ball. So we both, you know, graduated from UN C. So we're proud of Lums to see one of our kids go there. You know, that's great. It is. We wanted all three to go there. But Jake's gonna go there. My older siblings, they uh set the platform for me to be um, a successful basketball player, seeing sir get recruited, um, just showed me another side of athletics really. I don't know when she was 14, she started getting recruiting letters and I was like, are we doing this? Yeah, she just kept getting recruited and then she decided her sophomore year that she was gonna step the scholarship to Virginia Tech. This is just a phenomenal athlete. I mean, the kid is just awesome athletically, like just a freak. So Deuce was a good basketball player and I looked up to him, you know, coming in, those are big shoes to fill. I was just, um, wanted to make sure I did it in the right way. How you, for the result? I think what makes having a kid like Drake in this school is he wants to be here. Uh, he could have gone anywhere. He wanted to, a lot of these kids do go to prep schools, they go, uh, something, uh, for more competition. What, what have you? But he chose to be here. I don't know if I want the chicken or the pizza. He likes the school experience. Um, and he enjoys being a student. He kinda helps establish the culture. Uh, we have here, so we've seen this, uh, yesterday, the MLK Day of Service. We're gonna be doing that on Monday at 830. Did you ever consider leaving to go to a prep school or, or somewhere like that? There's all these other options out there. Nowadays, I did consider leaving Northwood to go to one of those high profile prep schools to, you know, still play against some of the top talent in the country. But I decided to stay at Northwood so I could, you know, still build relations with, um, the coaches over at UN C, it, it was several different things that we weighed when we were trying to make that decision. Um, the past couple of years, um, they've been really close to winning a state championship but they, they've come up short and that's real, that's something that he really wants to accomplish before he leaves. We gotta clean all six of these things up in these next two months and it starts tonight. Don't care about the competition. I'm worried about us doing the right thing going into the sea for game. I was thinking that it was gonna be filled with, um, a lot of emotions since everyone knows each other. Number three F six. Why you think we got the biggest rivalry of the century? C fourth? Of course, North one, the Battle of 64. Can this game be any bigger? It on good on the 30 we're here now. Yeah, I mean, the teaching moment in C fourth, I didn't feel like we were playing up to our, our standard and that's, that's what's frustrating. If you don't box out, you're coming out of the game. We, we're not waiting until March to like, say, hey, this is the emphasis. This is emphasis now we lost two games because of it. We're not gonna lose anymore because they got it. You don't want them to short change themselves because if you do, that's being, that's like a disservice to them. So I was a little fiery to start and I think they responded. Well, how are you? You enjoy the game? I got to watch Drake after a game. It's, it's kind of like, like, am I really witnessing this? Like, am I even a part of this? How you said when he come back? He wants you to sign both his all year book and take a picture with him and sign his picture because he know that you're going to the NBA and he wanna be able to tell everybody after the games, you know, when fans come down to just to see me interact with me as well as my teammates. It's, um, it's picked up a lot just showing that we, that we're all north with is, um I think that's the biggest thing and it could, it'll continue to evolve. Why? Ok. Look at your grades. How happy do you think I was watching that film last night? I'm kind of at a loss right now. Something has to change and I don't know what's going to happen. We might just not play the guys who are just not boxing out. I'm the type of coach, I'm never satisfied. Um, and they kind of, they know that now, um, being with me for almost four years. Is that good enough, Drake? No, sir. Coach Brown, he, you know, he nitpicks the little things because since he knows how good we can be and, you know, we wanna be good, we're willing to do. Um, the things that he asked if you're not going to go 100% camp don't do it. So we first encountered him with our other son. He came in when Deuce was a sophomore. Um and Northwood basketball had been struggling for a number of years and he came in and told us what he wanted to do. And we were like, oh, yeah, he had a vision. It all started when I was a kid. Uh you know, growing up in Indiana, everybody had a ball in the crib. So when my career ended in high school, I wanted to stick, stick with it. And the only way I could have was become a manager. Uh So I became a manager at Indiana University after I graduated, I sent out 809 100 resumes out of all that stuff. I got two callbacks and um Pfeiffer University coach Davis. Um he took a chance on me and hired me as an assistant coach at pfeiffer from I went to UN C Charlotte to become a grad assistant. So I went out to Stanford after two years at UN C Charlotte and, uh, was a coaching intern and video coordinator there for, uh, coach Dawkins. And then I moved back home to Indiana, was an assistant coach at Leo High School. Um, and then after that, I got my first head coaching job at Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, South Carolina. So, how did you wind up at Northwood? How did I wind up in Northwood? Well, it's a, it's a crazy story but it's one of the best stories I've ever had. Um, I was transitioning jobs at the same time. My wife and I were, um, thinking about adopting, we came home um, to North Carolina, uh, to Nicole's, my wife's parents' house in Sanford. And um, Saturday morning, we got up, we were about ready to do some, uh, fundraising for the adoption and the job opened up for Northwood on max preps. I put my resume in that morning, Saturday morning, about an hour later, we got a call, her grandpa fell. We had to go to the hospital in Sanford local hospital and while we were waiting there, uh, my wife got a call, she said there's a expectant mother at the hospital and, um, she was thinking about giving up her baby for adoption. My wife asked, well, where is she at? She goes, well, we're in the Sanford Hospital and we're like, well, we're in the Sanford Hospital. So, I mean, we're like, this is crazy. He had a call about 45 minutes later. Um And it was Coach Vernon. It was just when you talk about like a higher being. If you're a faithful person, you think about that. Um It was like things were meant to be that day. My daughter was born a week later and, uh a day after that, I get a call from, uh coach Vernon telling me, I, I got the job and my little girl is six years old and I mean, she's literally grew up with these kids. Drake has seen Sadie grow up, I've seen Drake grow up and it's just, it's amazing. It really is. And the way those guys interact with my little girl is, is something else. It's been, it's been a great ride. Can't wait till the ending though. It's gonna be exciting. You watch Myers yet? No, not really. It's a Marlins number one team in the state going to Pittsburgh State 6 p.m. game time. I'm talking about getting there two hours early, two hours early. It's about to be sold out. I describe Myers Park as um just a gritty well-rounded talented team. Myers Park, the type of team they are long athletic, they have four high major players that's Bishop Boswell, four star recruit, Tennessee commit and Drake's teammate on team CP three and there's Sir Mohammed, four star recruit and Notre Dame commit. And last but not least Sidiq White four star recruit, undecided number one player in North Carolina for the 2025 class. They're a college basketball team. Basically. They're number three in the nation for a reason. Get to the rim. Your shot might get blocked. I ain't gonna lie, but you can't be scared of that. You keep taking it at them. We got it, we got it. All right. Let's show him what north was all about. Let's go, go take it, go back to the army kicks up ash as it attacks the rim. Back out the boat out to uh Drake Drake spots up, pull up three, sprint the lanes make or miss they ain't getting back. He goes up, knocks it back up to Isaiah Blair after Jake Leighton shoots the three, my head was like vibrating. It was so loud. It was like, man, this is high school basketball like this is what it's supposed to be. He won twice. Take it at him. We're hanging with them. The number three team in the nation. We're right there. We're two possessions away from winning this game. You understand that? Seize the opportunity. Seize the moment you guys got this. Let's go. We're gonna win it close. Ok? When we started to trail in the Myers Park game, um, we just wanted to, you know, stay with each other because we knew adversity was gonna hit side. ST we're fine. We're fine. Let's do. Let's go keep fighting at the end of the game when I got hot. Mostly I was thinking you know, last chance to win, it just, uh, possibly make one more push to, um, see what we can do after Drake Powell spot up three, having Coach Frederick and Coach May, there was a good experience, you know, them showing the support being so close. Um, and, uh, I like that, they got to see, uh, a very talented game. It is now end of the ball game good. Northwood loses the game 6347 in a hotly contested game. You know, I don't think the score reflected how high intense the game actually was. Good game, good game. It was a well fought game. I mean, they're a terrific team. I mean, they were really good, proud of y'all. You fought to the end. We're right there. They made a little run in the third quarter, but we're right there guys. I hope you understand that they're the number three team in the nation. We're head to toe. I mean, we're right there guys, so ain't proud of you. So you gotta tell us everything about it, everything. Yeah, I'm not good at that and we're gonna ask questions. He likes to go to art museums. Um So he goes to a museum in Raleigh and, you know, looks at artwork spends about, I don't know, 30 45 minutes there, helps him clear, his head, helps him clear his head. He's got a little creative side to him. And then I um started with writing my name first and then um you know, I chose green because you know, I was saying get my money. Yeah. Earlier today he went to a new place in Apex called Mad Splatter where you just throw paint at a canvas. I did the stars because you know, five stars I think that um represents me. Art helps me find my headspace a little because I think it's calming to me not as like a way out of, of the world, but, um, just, um, just a fun way to express myself. I think maybe you can go back with some friends next time if you want to. Probably not. Ok, so you like going to these places by yourself therapeutic and then you come back and kill entering the playoffs. I just wanted to, to have as much fun as I can because I knew I wasn't gonna be able to get this, um, this experience back and, um, just win at all costs. Really? Ladies and gentlemen, we are here at the high school to charges and being central, the Green Central game was a wake up call for us really? Because, um, you know, we just thought we could show up and, you know, since we're wearing charges across our chest and, you know, we go to Northwood that we'd be able to walk into a win. You know, they came in with a, with a great game plan. But overall, you know, um, a win is a win in the playoffs. Fine, North Johnston game was kind of interesting. Um, we started the game. Power breaker went out and so all the electricity in the building, uh, went out at probably like a five, I think it was a five minute mark. So we had to actually move our game, move everybody to sea fourth. The community came with us, traveled over there to Sea fourth to give us that support. And uh yeah, it was a great game overall. Northwood wins the basketball, a dominating fashion. So the Southeast is game that was our third time playing against them. And you know, it's a conference uh game. They came into Northwood with um a certain edge. It's always hard to beat a team three times in a year. I thought they were a lot better than what they were when we first met them and they played us tough. Um But again, I thought our defense was outstanding that night. I look to the jaguar then when you come and see complete greatness. If you want to play the best, you come here, baby, you already see the live, don't you? Everybody want to see the best. You already know that. No one see this. No jaguar. You can believe it. We want. I mean, Farmville Central is one of the top programs in the state, multiple state championships, multiple um division one players. So, I mean, we knew going into the game it was gonna be a tough one. I knew in particular of uh Teran Smith, one of the, the big names that came from that school. I knew their environment was always gonna be um just a static. The bus ride was kinda a bit shaky. I, I had uh fell asleep on there. I'm sure some of my teammates did as well. Went to um Google Maps to see how far we were away. And um I realized that we were running a bit late. We just caught, got caught in the construction traffic and um it actually worked out. I mean, we, we got there on time. Um You know, we, we were able to get dressed, we, we weren't able to like sit around and think too much. So I think that was a little bit, you know, a blessing too. No, I'm good. I'll be fine. It was just one of those things that, yeah, I roll with the punches. I love you too. This man that, that I, I knew they, they always have um a guy to start the game, seeing MJ Williams go off was it, it was something we knew they could shoot coming into the game, but I don't think we um closed out enough. I mean MJ, he was a really good player. Uh We knew going that going into the game that he was, he was one of their better players. Um We didn't expect them to have that type of game when he shot it from the logo. I thought, um, you know, that he's feeling himself right now that, uh, that we needed to apply more pressure. We're all right now, we're settled in now. We get a groove on. All right. Hey, um, just keep playing. I um, do, hey, listen, they want bananas and we're still only down by 11. Right. That's good. They won't be able to come back and shoot like that in the second half. The adjustments we made to halftime was to go to a zone to pick them up a little bit higher. All right, you keep playing defense like we know how to, you rebound the ball and get layups on offense when they gamble, we'll win this game. So we went to our 212 that we played a couple of times this past year. Um, but I thought it, it slowed them down. The comeback feeling, felt great. You know, we gave the Phantom life as well after I had cut the game to three, I started to feel a little bit more than I already had. Let's go. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. Oh, my dad has implemented on me that the, the game doesn't stop till it's like eight year year. So I think there's always a chance, bye. I thought that we had a really good chance of winning that game. I thought we were able to, we would be able to get over that hump. They made some big time shots, they made some big time plays in our, you know, we, we just, we weren't able to, uh, get over it when the clock hit 00. I was just thinking like Dave, it's just the, the story is over after the game, it's always hard because it comes to a sudden end and you didn't think it would come to an end at that time. And you had a vision in your mind and a goal and a dream of, you know, being that one team fellas, I know it's hurting right now, but you guys played your hearts out, you left it all on the floor. That's how the game goes. Sometimes the feeling felt, the feeling felt bad. It just that, um, so that I wouldn't be able to wear Northwood uniform again. You see, here's UC ES are a special group and to be honest, guys, this group right here is special to me. I was dealing with a lot of stuff over this last year and you guys pulled me through without me knowing it. That means a lot that he said that we were there for him since he's given so much to this program. And I believe that he'll continue to, I just wanted them to get to that goal of that dream. Um I felt more, more bad for them than anything else. It was a pleasure to, to coach you guys we had a good year. We had a year that you will never forget. I love every one of you guys. Yeah, let's get up and pray. What is it came to come? That will be done on the breath test. Yes. So it is not to take those you got in cargo the best. What do, what's next is always, you know, I'm going to take some time off. Um, my wife's due in, in a month. So we got another uh we got, I got a son coming on the way and um, you know, just trying to spend a little bit more time with the family uh during this downtime, but then get ready for next year. I'd say my high school career at Northwood was great. You know, I had great people around me. I came up short a couple of times but it's just more drive to uh continue the way I see it is. I was very fortunate and blessed to be able to um coach guy like Drake. I mean, I've known him since he was in the sixth grade. So I was able to see him uh kind of grow up and become the guy and the man who he is right now. And I'm looking forward to what he's gonna do next in the next chapter because this chapter is done. But his, his basketball career is far from over starting at um UN C and ending my high school career. Here at, um, Northwood is something that, um, I look forward to in. I know that there's gonna be multiple obstacles along the way. And the high school transitioning to college, you know, college is a business. Now, now that I'm like a student athlete, I'm ready to ready for the challenges and I want the good days and the bad days in the, the, the mid days, but I'm just gonna keep striving to be the best individual I can be.