The name plate on Charlie Powell's desk doesn't have his surname on it - it reads "M. Track" instead.
It's an appropriate tag for a man who, to many, is men's track at Penn and has been for some time.
Powell is in his 19th year with the Quakers, in which time he's helped produce four Heptagonal championships and a host of individual accolades, making his trophy case one of the more impressive among Penn's non-revenue sports.
But Powell's obsessions go way beyond Franklin Field - he comes from a family of athletes and took the long route to get to Penn. The Daily Pennsylvanian caught up with the coach yesterday; find out about his college days, the national fraternity of track coaches, why he now has the best mustache in town and how Mythbusters has wreaked havoc on his life.
Daily Pennsylvanian: Let's jump right in. Is your office always this messy?
Charlie Powell: No, it's clean! The spring gets crazy. You get everything from home meets, Penn Relays stuff, expense reports, budget stuff. It gets really messy in the spring; it cleans back up in the summer. But then as the year goes on it gets messier and messier, and by the spring it'll look like this again.
DP: Is that the way it goes for most track coaches?
Powell: I have no idea. I do know a couple guys that are a lot messier. Mark Young at Yale is phenomenal. He's got stuff stacked to the ceiling.
DP: We understand you're with a recruit right now. Is he big-time? Should I call the papers?
Powell: You better not call the papers.
DP: How many total years have you been at Penn?
Powell: 23, 24? . These are numbers that I don't need to think about.
DP: Because they're too big?
Powell: They just go one after the other.
DP: So what keeps you in this business - is it the fame, money or glory?
Powell: Absolutely none of those. But it's a fact that I still have the best mustache on campus now that [Fran] Dunphy has left. There's no argument.
DP: There was an argument?
Powell: There was a big article in the DP about it a couple of years ago.
DP: Do you remember a specific moment where you said: "Coaching track is it for me?"
Powell: I don't know if there's any one moment... I remember one of my first years coaching, my very first All-American, a guy by the name of Don Douglas, who was an intermediate hurdler from Kentucky. Don's parents - it sounds weird to say in this day and age - Don's parents were sharecroppers. He grew up with eight or nine brothers and sisters, and they lived in a four-room house. And he was the first one ever in his family to graduate high school . I remember he was standing on the podium [after being named All-American] . and the tears just started flowing. So things like that.
DP: So what were you like as a student-athlete?
Powell: Probably a pain in the neck.
DP: Where did you go?
Powell: I went to Virginia Tech, which is making news right now for all the wrong reasons, and then I finished up at Western Kentucky, because of a lot of crazy things. I started out playing football, and I decided that football wasn't for me because it was a business, and they made no qualms about that. You were a gladiator as far as they were concerned. That, and my dad passed away my sophomore year. I took half a year off from school and tried to put my whole life in perspective . but I was more a pain in the neck to most college coaches because I wanted to know why. And it wasn't that little five-or six-year old kid saying "why, Daddy?" - I was asking why should I train this way? Because of that, you get all the little things you need to know to be a successful coach.
DP: So was that more conducive to you running track than playing football?
Powell: Definitely so.
DP: What position?
Powell: I was a wide receiver.
DP: Were you a jock?
Powell: Yeah. I was.
DP: Did you embrace that?
Powell: Yes, I kind of did. My dad played basketball at Illinois, my sister was a skier, my grandmother's brother played for the New York Yankees.
DP: So pressure was on you.
Powell: No, it wasn't; we all chose different sports.
DP: Was that deliberate?
Powell: I think so. I think my dad kind of went towards basketball because of his baseball background, and I went towards football and track because it was different than that. Now my son's in soccer, so I think it's something in our genes.
DP: Talk about Ivy League track coaches - is it a close fraternity?
Powell: No, track coaches in general are a fraternity, and it's just a subset of that. They used to be a really close group. They actually got together for dinner with their wives and they went and played golf together, all kinds of stuff. It's not that way any more, but Ivy coaches are still their own group.
DP: Do you feel better about beating any particular team?
Powell: Hell yeah.
DP: Can you name names?
Powell: I've always thought that the Penn-Princeton rivalry is one of the best I've ever seen. One of the great lines ever was [the late Princeton coach] Larry Ellis and [former Penn coach] Irv Mondschein were chatting one day after a heated battle, and they started talking about how rivalries make people better . He was saying that if Penn and Princeton got together for the Ivy League tiddlywinks battle, you could fill the Palestra.
DP: What's the least glamorous part of your job?
Powell: It's a lot of hours. In a scholarship situation, you can recruit 20 kids to fill your 12 or 15 spots . I have to keep track of 50, 60 kids.
DP: At this point, do you feel as if you're going to end your career at Penn?
Powell: I have no idea.
DP: Have you had thoughts of going elsewhere?
Powell: I've been contacted by places like Villanova, Kansas, Northern Arizona, Stanford . who knows. There might be something, but I don't see it.
DP: Is track your favorite sport to watch?
Powell: No, college football.
DP: Quick, favorite TV show.
Powell: Believe it or not, I don't have one.
DP: In the Powell household?
Powell: Are you kidding me? Mythbusters. It's nuts.
DP: The sign of an inquisitive mind?
Powell: I don't know, but we have the famous minto-Diet Coke fountains in our back yard; my son almost burned down our shed once; his buddies built one of those potato launchers. Our house is insane because of Mythbusters.
DP: Do you have anything to tell our readers?
Powell: [laughs] Don't ever let the things you can't do get in the way of the things you can.
