SEATTLE — Mishael Powell is a five-star kid.
He doesn’t need a recruiting ranking to tell him it’s true.
And he wouldn’t be at Washington if he didn’t believe it.
Powell — a 6-foot-1, 200-pound cornerback from Seattle — earned scholarship offers from Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Georgetown, Eastern Washington and Air Force in the 2019 class. His parents were both first-generation college graduates with Ivy League educations — with Yvonne Powell earning a Ph.D. from Penn State and a master’s degree from Columbia, and Darrell Powell earning an MBA from Harvard.
His parents understandably preferred Mishael accept a scholarship to an Ivy League school. But the Seattle O’Dea High School standout wanted what he calls “the best of both worlds.”
“Being able to go to a top program in the country in both football and academics was something I wanted to do,” Mishael Powell told The Seattle Times in a phone interview on Monday. “I felt by going to an Ivy League, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to showcase that I could play at this type of level. I was able to showcase my education by going to an Ivy League school. But being here and being in (the Foster School of Business) and also playing for a top school in the country was the best of both worlds.”
OK, OK.
But would he actually play?
Or was he sacrificing a scholarship to sit on the sideline?
Darrell Powell admitted Monday that “I’m old-school and I know what walk-ons used to be like, and they never saw the field. I couldn’t create a line of sight that that would be different (at UW). He saw it as different, and he made it work. So I’m amazed that he bet on himself and won.”
At Washington, Mishael keeps winning.
But not by accident.
“He didn’t necessarily come in as a five-star kid. He was a three-star (according to 247Sports),” Yvonne Powell said. “But that’s not how he saw himself, or how we saw him.
“It matters how you see yourself. He saw himself as a five-star kid or a four-star kid. I wouldn’t even put on stars. He saw himself as someone who could compete in the Pac-12 at the University of Washington. Because he saw himself that way, he was able to put in the work that needed to be done in order to get him to his goal.”
In time, Mishael — who earned direct admittance to the Foster School of Business — got to his goal, playing in all 12 games in the 2021 season. After failing to see the field in both 2019 and 2020, he contributed 11 tackles, three passes defended and one forced fumble last fall, including six tackles and a forced fumble in his first career start against Cal. Yvonne Powell called the Cal game “a real special moment for us.”
But it wouldn’t have been possible without an abundance of honesty.
“What kind of flipped the switch was during quarantine, I had to quarantine for about two weeks because my roommate had gotten COVID,” Mishael Powell said. “So then I just kind of looked back and reflected, ‘OK, am I doing everything that everyone in front of me is doing?’ Elijah Molden, that’s someone that’s a really hard worker. That’s someone who works hard in the film room, weight room, on the field, works on his mental. Trent McDuffie works on his footwork. Kyler Gordon works on all these attributes.
“I just asked myself a serious question: am I doing all of that? If I am and I’m still not getting where I want to be, that’s different. But what I think is really important is having that self-talk and having that real conversation with yourself and asking yourself if you’re doing what is required to be that standard and to be a great DB to come out of the University of Washington.”
Powell is becoming that person, and player.
His teammates see it.
Kalen DeBoer just said it.
Last Friday, UW’s first-year head coach stood at the front of a meeting room, between rows of Huskies facing an overhead projector. The 47-year-old DeBoer paced from side to side as he spoke, motioning with his hand for added emphasis.
“When we do celebrations — listen carefully to this, OK? — we celebrate the people that put in the work, people that are well respected because of who they are as a person,” DeBoer said. “There is someone in this room who has been brought to my attention over and over and over and over again, from all of these guys right here. I got goose bumps right now, thinking about the things he’s told me, as well as the things that have been told to me by you guys in this room.
“And so I want to recognize and honor … Meesh Powell. You’re on scholarship.”
In that moment, five words — “AY MEESH! YOU’RE ON SCHOLARSHIP! — flashed on the screen. His teammates made a beeline for the sophomore Seattleite, enveloping him in a delirious dogpile. Powell eventually emerged from the scrum to hug DeBoer.
But he had to wait for the video to be posted on social media four hours later to remember what he said.
“Everything kind of went numb for a second,” Mishael Powell said. “I had to watch the video to remember what he said, because I was so struck — like, ‘Oh wow, this really happened.’ ”
Once it did, Mishael shared the news on a FaceTime call with his parents and his sister.
Yvonne Powell felt “jubilation.”
Darrell Powell felt relief.
“The original deal for him to get a scholarship was from coach (Chris) Petersen,” Darrell Powell explained. “Coach Petersen gave a set of criteria from which he would earn a scholarship. Coach Lake basically agreed with that same set of criteria, but now both of them were gone.
“I don’t know the process when someone comes in. Do they endorse what was there? So for me, since the hiring of the new coaches and they were bringing in new DBs, I had a level of just angst. Do you have to start all over? So when he told me, I was more relieved. Because in my heart of hearts, I knew he had earned it.”
He added: “There were a few tears. As a dad, it was overwhelming.”
But it’s just the beginning.
Mishael — who joins a list of UW walk-ons that earned scholarships that also includes Myles Bryant, Ryan Bowman, Edefuan Ulofoshio and Jack Westover, among others — will compete for a starting spot this spring, following the departures of McDuffie, Gordon and Brendan Radley-Hiles.
And despite the coaching changes, he’ll do it at UW.
“He is a Husky — a Dawg — through and through,” Yvonne Powell said. “There was never any conversations related to (transferring). UW is Mishael’s home, and he has friends and relationships. Mishael is a leader. He chose that place for a reason.”
Mishael Powell chose the University of Washington in 2019.
And on Friday, officially, DeBoer returned the favor.
