When LSU senior Darion Powell takes to the track each week to compete, he stretches and tests the extent of his body\'s speed, strength, agility and endurance.
As a decathlete for the Tigers, Powell competes in an event based on the training ancient Greek soldiers used to prepare for war. Jumping, sprinting and throwing spears, Powell is less an athlete and more a modern-day warrior.
Powell has battled pulled muscles, fractured bones and numerous bumps and bruises just to come back and batter his body again.
Yet he would consider that the easy part of his day.
For 12 years, Powell's father has been battling a terminal form of cancer known as carcinoid cancer, one that attacks the liver and lungs. Watching his father struggle through chemotherapy and the pain associated has taught Powell lessons about how to deal with life's aches and pains.
Yet Powell knows how he can help his father more than any form of medicine can. His coach Irving "Boo" Schexnayder summed it up best. "It's a very deep and personal relationship," said Schexnayder. "They are not only father and son, but also best friends. I've seen Darion uplift his dad by his success here."
For a family that has moved nearly 2,700 miles together and battled some of life's toughest struggles any family could be asked to face, the Powell's maintain a sunny disposition about the difficulties of life.
Family Ties
Growing up in Kirkland, Wash., Powell comes from a very athletic family. Darion's father, David, was a hurdler in high school and college. In fact, at one point his father held both the 100 and 400-meter hurdles records at both institutions.
David passed his love of the sport down to his children. David began training Darion and his brother, Calen, on the track at a very young age. As the children grew, Darion began to take the sport and excel.
"I wasn't very good when I was young and my brother was," said Darion. "But it kind of switched roles as we got older. He got really big while I stayed leaner. I passed him up when we were in high school."
Darion's older brother didn't give up his athletic lifestyle though. Calen earned a full scholarship to Duke University to play tight end for four years. Currently, he is in the NFL with the Washington Redskins.
As a junior and senior in high school, Powell won the high school national pentathlon in 2000 and 2001. In 2001, Powell added the national decathlon title to his growing list of accomplishments.
Coming out of high school, Powell was ranked the number one decathlete in Track and Field News' 2001 prep rankings. That summer, Powell competed internationally in a meet with USA vs. Canada, winning the junior decathlon title.
Growing Pains
After a busy summer competing and training for his international event, Powell began his freshman year at Washington State. While competing unattached for the Cougars, Powell's body began to show the wear and tear of the hours of long practice.
A sore foot forced him to miss most of his first collegiate outdoor season. The next season Powell competed most of the spring with a cast on his left wrist.
Despite the rough start, Powell still competed in the 2003 NCAA Championships. He garnered All-American honors with a fourth place finish, tallying 7,511 points during the two-day event.
"In Washington, it rained pretty much every day," said Powell. "Where I'm from it snowed the whole winter. We were working out in freezing cold weather. It didn't start warming up until about right now just in time for nationals. It was very hard to train. It was hard to get warmed up, especially in that kind of cold weather."
Everything seemed to be coming together for the Washington native. After a successful indoor season and setting personal bests in several of his outdoor events, the All-American's outdoor campaign was once again cut short with another stress fracture in his right foot.
Journey to LSU
Powell felt himself breaking down. He knew he needed a change. So once again he turned to his family for guidance.
Powell's father had recently moved to New Orleans to take a new job. After ranking colleges around the nation, Powell decided to follow his elder to the South to walk-on at LSU.
"He wanted to help inter-city youth and kids, help with schools that weren't really developed," said Powell of his father's move. "It's his passion to help kids that are struggling in school. He really wanted the environment change."
The All-American knew if he wanted to get better, he'd need someone to push him. LSU's Alleyne Lett had earned All-American honors at the last NCAA Championships and had set a new collegiate record in the discus in the process. LSU had the competition that Powell needed to improve as an athlete.
"I knew I needed someone to train and compete with," said Powell. "So I made a top-10 list of the best around the country. I didn't know Edwin (Billot) was here, but I knew Alleyne (Lett) was here and I knew he was fast and a great athlete. That, the fact that coach (Schexnayder) has coached so many Olympic athletes and the warm weather brought me down here."
But like everything else in Powell's track career, getting on to the track for LSU didn't happen without its bumps.
As Powell was in the process of beginning his senior year at LSU, the SEC was changing its laws on transfers competing during their first year at a new institution. The SEC's new rule would keep Powell off the team for nearly two months.
Powell now didn't know if he would be able to compete for the Tigers. After writing the SEC and appealing the decision, the conference eventually declared Powell eligible because his paperwork was filed before the rule went into effect.
Redemption
Once on campus, Powell immediately made his impact felt on the LSU track team. During the indoor season, Powell captured another All-American distinction in the heptathlon, finishing third with a new school record of 5,707 points.
"He's a talented athlete. He's a great track person," said Schexnayder. "More than just his event, he's really into the whole sport as both a competitor and a fan. He's been around a lot so he understands how this sport works. He's wise. He's been running track for a long time."
Powell has now turned his attention to his last trip to the NCAA Outdoor Championships. During the SEC Championships, Powell's automatic qualifying mark of 7,640 points moved him into seventh place all-time in school history in the decathlon. The new personal best has Powell confident heading into the championships.
"He seems to do his best in big meets and of course that's the biggest," continued Schexnayder. "He seems to have a sense of urgency and a sense of purpose, almost a sense of redemption because he has struggled at outdoor nationals the past couple of years.
With that sense of purpose and being fully healthy for the first time in years, Powell looks to finish his career the same way he started it, earning All-America honors in the decathlon. But it's more than just self-confidence that has the senior ready to perform. Few people are fortunate to have the kind of cheering section that Powell has behind him.
"My dad has been there for me," said Powell. "Through thick and thin, he's been there for me. He's pretty much taken the shirt off his back to put it on mine."