Ole Miss Football: Jerrell Powe Is More Than Meets the Eye

All too often we tend to take what we hear about someone for face value, if we were to believe what we had been told about Ole Miss defensive tackle Jerrell Powe, we would come to the decision that he wasn't interested in classroom work in the least. That is what I thought about him when I first heard about his skills on the football field and his seemingly lack of skills in the classroom. Were we ever wrong.

As a senior at Wayne County High School in Waynesboro, Mississippi, Powe became a USA TODAY All American while recording 89 tackles, 9 sacks and five forced fumbles.  Powe chose Ole Miss as his school of choice, and this is where the story takes a bad turn, he was denied his freshman year of eligibility by the NCAA because he had missed some his core classes while at Wayne County H.S.

He then spent a year at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia, one of the leading preparatory schools in the South. The NCAA once again denied Powe stating that he could return to high school or enroll in junior college. Next Powe attended Penn Foster Career School a Pennsylvania prep school, in 2007 the NCAA once again denied his request to play for the Rebels. 

Powe stayed at Ole Miss taking courses, but could not participate in the football program.

In 2008 Jerrell Powe earned a varsity letter and recorded an interception, seeing action in 12 games. In 2009 he became a full time starter, and  was named All SEC second team by the Associated Press, he had 34 tackles. This spring he was awarded the J. Richard Price Courage and Compassion Award, Powe is at the top of the depth chart and NFL scouts are excited about his potential.

End of a great comeback story right? Absolutely not, this young man has overcome so many kicks to the gut by the NCAA, his percervierance needs to be recognized.

All this man has done is everything that has been asked of him and then some, whether it is in the academic field or on the football field. He came into camp at 320 pounds, in much better shape than the 383 that he topped out at last year, and was named the most improved player on defense by Houston Nutt.

Most of us don't go to Ivy League schools, but Powe has shown time and time again that if you really want something you just have to keep going after it

He could have pulled the chute a few years ago and tried to land in the CFL or Arena League but his constant fight shows me that Powe sees the bigger picture.

Maybe a lesson can be learned from all of this, we can not be so quick to jump to conclusions about another person that we know nothing about other than a 20 second clip on the evening news. I was one of the people that did jump to a conclusion of Jerrell Powe before I knew anything about him, and for that I humbly apologize.