The Prince of Pittsboro: UNC commit Drake Powell's final season at Northwood High School

By Pat Welter

Silence. That's the sound inside the visiting locker room at Farmville Central High School. It's March 9, 2024 and the Northwood High School basketball team has just lost in the NCHSAA 2A East Final 77-70. Eyes face the floor, towels are over heads, several players are crying.

"Fellas I know it's hurting right now," Northwood head basketball coach Matt Brown said to break the silence. "You guys played your hearts out, you left it all on the floor. It's how the game goes sometimes."

The emotion in the air is so thick you can almost feel it. This wasn't just the end of a season for Northwood, it was the end of a dream, it was the end of an era.

"After the game is always hard, because it comes to a sudden end," Brown said in an interview with WRAL the following Tuesday. "You had a vision in your mind and a goal and a dream of being that one team."

Since Brown was named Northwood head coach in 2017, the Chargers have become one of the top teams in the state. They've won four conference championships and were the state runner up in 2021 and 2023. There's been a lot of great players who have contributed to that success, none better than Northwood senior and UNC commit, Drake Powell.

"Drake Powell as a player, he is a silent killer," Brown said. "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."

Powell is a McDonald's All-American. The 6'6 guard is rated a 5-star recruit by 247 sports and is ranked No. 2 in the state and No. 10 in the nation.

"His work ethic is relentless, his drive is unmatched," Brown said. "That's why I think he's the best two-way player in the country, why he's going to be the best player out of Northwood ever, out of Chatham county ever, play professional basketball, be a NBA all-star...that sort of drive he has comes once in a lifetime."

Since Brown took over as head coach support for the basketball program in the community has steadily grown. Over the last four years with Powell, they've become the small Chatham county town of Pittsboro's professional basketball team.

"Everyone comes to see Drake," Wanda Bland said from the stands of a Northwood basketball game. "Drake's been the man ever since he was in high school."

"He has put Chatham county in a place they have never been before," Veronica Scotton said sitting next to Bland.

Both women have been watching Drake play since elementary and middle school.

"Carolina is going to get a great kid," Bland added. "Go Tar Heels!"

A Carolina Kid

"I first got into basketball going to the Chatham county parks and recs," Drake Powell said. "I started playing since I was five and loved it ever since."

"His talents they presented early," Dedric Powell, Drake's father said.

"Like five or six [years old]," Cherice Powell, Drake's mother added from their home in Chatham county.

Drake is the youngest of three siblings. His basketball talent really started to reveal itself when he played up with his brother Deuce.

"They were playing in this travel tournament in Durham and they didn't have enough players so they asked Drake to play on the team," Dedric said. "Drake was a third 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 to impact winning," Drake said.

"He was shooting three pointers," Dedric laughed. "Talking to the opposing coach. Coach was like 'what? this is what you do?'"

"Yeah they were setting plays for him it was double stack Drake," Cherice said.

"I do remember double stack Drake actually," Drake smiled. "That was one of my favorites because that's when I would get to shoot the ball."

Drake was born in a Durham hospital, but grew up in Pittsboro. Dedric is from Hallsboro , North Carolina and Cherice is from Charlotte. Cherice was an all-state high school basketball player, Dedric was a high school basketball and baseball player. He played baseball at the University of North Carolina where they both attended school and met.

"We are both proud alums," Dedric said. "To see one of our kids go there it's great."

"It is," Cherice added. "We wanted all three to go there, but Drake is going to go there."

Drake's older sister Cera played college volleyball at Virginia Tech and UCONN. His brother Deuce was a football, basketball and baseball star at Northwood High School. He played basketball at Louisburg College before transferring to North Carolina A&T to pursue a business degree.

"My older siblings they set the platform for me to be a successful basketball player," Drake said. "Seeing Cera get recruited showed me another side of athletics really."

"Deuce was a good basketball player and I looked up to him," Drake said. "Coming in those were big shoes to fill I just wanted to make sure I did it in the right way."

In addition to playing at Northwood, Drake played AAU on the Adidas circuit as well as the Nike EYBL. Playing on Chris Paul's Team CP3 is when the recruiting really picked up. Ironically his first offer came from NC State's Kevin Keatts during his sophomore year.

"They were playing their county rival Seaforth," Dedric remembered. "Seaforth had a really good player on their team at that time, Jarin Stevenson. He was being recruited by NC State and Kevin Keatts was there."

Stevenson went on to play at Alabama, but Drake had a really good game and the next day Keatts reached out through Drake's coaches.

"We went over, went to a football game, had a great visit and at the end coach Keatts gave him his first offer. He was really excited about it," Cherice said.

"[Keatts] said 'Drake how many offers you have,?" Dedrice remembered, "He had zero offers at the time, and Keatts said 'well you've got one now.'"

As memorable as the first offer was, it was the last one that Drake and his family were waiting for.

"UNC was my dream school because it's all I've ever really known," Drake said. "I've seen a lot of great players come through in person and on TV as well."

Drake left himself open to other programs and he had fourteen other offers, but UNC was always the one he was waiting for. After the Final Four in 2022, Hubert Davis finally made the call.

"After the UNC offer people just stopped," Cherice said. "They just assumed his parents are alums, he's in Chapel Hill, everyone wants to go to UNC...now those fourteen didn't stop recruiting, it's just no other offers came."

No other offers were needed. Drake announced his commitment to UNC in September of 2022.

"Getting an offer from UNC was pretty special," Drake said. "I grew up watching a lot of the teams that played. It wasn't an emotional feeling, but an exhilarating one."

"UNC was the offer that I wanted and I told myself the way that I work out I can't want UNC one day and not the next."

The Prince of Pittsboro

It's hard to explain what Drake and this Northwood team mean to the Pittsboro community, it's better when you see it.

"To watch Drake after a game it's kind of like am I really witnessing this," Brown said. "Like am I even a part of this."

After a 75-30 win over cross town rival Seaforth in early January students, parents and fans flooded the court. This wasn't a court storm, it was just Northwood's new tradition.

"He says he wants you to sign both of his yearbooks and his picture because he knows you're going to the NBA," a woman said to Drake on the court. "He want to be able to tell everyone he knows you."

"For sure, for sure," Drake said.

Drake signs autographs, takes selfies with fans, his NBA caliber wing span helps get the perfect angle.

"After the game when fans come down just to see me, interact with me as well as my teammates," Drake said. "It's picked up a lot."

What's almost even more impressive is Drake and his teammates will interact with their fans the same way after a loss too.

"That's kind of become our thing the last couple years," Brown said. "I let the guys just kind of hang out."

"He grew up here and most of those people have known Drake all his life since he was a kid playing in parks and rec," Dedric said. "That also goes back to why he decided to stay. Those kids can look up to him and see that he had all this success staying at a public school, I don't have to go anywhere either."

College and NBA basketball's culture has become one of player empowerment. Fans are trained to be wary that as soon as they fall in love with a star player, that player is likely to leave for a better opportunity. The same can be said of high school basketball. Programs like Montverde Academy outside Orlando, Florida, IMG Academy in Bradenton have hosted former and future triangle players like Kyrie Irving, Cooper Flagg and Armando Bacot. The opportunity to attend a school like that was available to Drake too.

"I did consider leaving Northwood to go to one of those high profile prep schools, to play against some of the top talent in the country," Drake said. "I decided to stay at Northwood so I could still build relations with the coaches over at UNC."

"It was several different things we weighed when we were trying to make that decision," Dedric said. "The past couple of years they've been really close to winning a state championship and they've come up short. That's something he really wants to accomplish before he leaves."

A Hoosier in the Tar Heel state

Being close to the UNC coaches was one of the many reasons Drake stayed at Northwood High School. Having a coach with college experience at Northwood helped too.

"How happy do you think I was watching that film last night," Brown said during a film session the day following the win over Seaforth.

The team is gathered in a portable classroom on the Northwood campus. They are sitting at desks with a montage of missed rebounds and blown defensive assignments playing on a projector screen.

"Something has to change and I don't know what's going to happen," Brown continued. "Might just not play the guys who aren't boxing out."

"I'm the type of coach who is never satisfied and they know that being with me now for almost four years," Brown said in an interview after a January practice.

"Is that good enough Drake?" Brown said during the film session.

Brown isn't afraid to call out his best player either.

"No sir," Drake responded looking down at his grade sheet that Brown and his assistants put together.

"Coach Brown he nit picks the little things because he knows we can be," Drake said. "We want to be good we are willing to do the things that he asks."

"We first encountered [Matt Brown] with our other son," Cherice said. "He came in when Deuce was a sophomore. Northwood basketball had been struggling for a number of years. He came in and told us what he wanted to do and we were like oh?"

"He had a vision," Dedric added.

"He had a vision," Cherice nodded.

World history and physical education teacher by day, but basketball coach by trade. Brown wears a suit and tie before every game. Many college and pro coaches switched to zip ups and athletic khakis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not Brown.

"When it gets heated or hot in the gym, I've been known to take [the jacket] off," Brown said while putting on his suit before the Seaforth game.

"I try to keep it on as much as possible."

Brown grew up in Indiana, one of the most basketball crazed states in the country.

"Everybody had a ball in their crib," Brown said. "When my [playing] career ended in high school I wanted to stick with it."

Brown attending Indiana University and became a manager for the basketball team. After he graduated he said he sent out eight hundred or nine hundred resumes.

"I even went to the Final Four that year which was in Indianapolis," Brown remembered. "I spent a couple days there just walking at the local hotel handing out resumes to anyone I could think was a coach."

Of all those resumes Brown got two call backs, one was from Dave Davis, head coach at Pfeiffer University in North Carolina.

"One of the best coaches that I've been around," Brown said. "He took a chance on me and hired me as an assistant coach."

From there Brown went to UNC Charlotte to become a grad assistant. After two years at UNC Charlotte he was able to follow the program's strength coach to Stanford where he worked as a coaching intern and video coordinator under head coach and former Duke star Johnny Dawkins.

"What I took away from the college experience was all the extreme details," Brown said. "When I was a manager and a grad assistant I had to do the laundry, I had to pick the guys up, make sure they were arriving to class on time, checking grades, rebound...all those little things."

"When I was an assistant coach, coaching intern and video coordinator I got to do all the video stuff," Brown said. "The breaking down of video, the tendencies, what coach was looking for, what coach isn't looking for."

From Stanford Brown went into high school coaching. He moved home to Indiana to become an assistant coach at Leo High School and then took his first head coaching job at Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, South Carolina. Brown described what brought him to Northwood as a crazy story, but one of the best he's ever had.

"God put us in a position where he wanted us to be at," Brown said.

Brown was transitioning jobs and at the same time, he and his wife Nicole were looking into adopting. They were applying to jobs in Indiana as well as Nicole's home state of North Carolina to be closer to family. They were staying at Nicole's families house in Sanford, North Carolina. Brown remembered waking up on a Saturday morning to fundraise for the adoption. He checked online and noticed an opening for a head basketball coaching position at Northwood High School.

"I spoke to my wife like 'what do you think? should I apply for it?'" Brown said. "She said 'yeah absolutely'".

Brown put his resume in that morning. About an hour later the family got the unfortunate call that Nicole's grandfather had fallen and needed to be taken to the hospital in Sanford. While waiting at the hospital they got another phone call, this one with better news. There was an expectant mother at the same hospital who was thinking about giving up her baby for adoption.

"About thirty minutes go by and we meet the expectant mother," Brown said. "She agreed to give her baby up for adoption, which is one of the hardest decisions a mom would have to make, but we were so grateful and thankful for that decision."

Brown and his family were celebrating the news when they got another serendipitous phone call from Northwood athletic director Cameron Vernon who asked if Brown would like to come in for an interview.

"When you talk about a higher being, if you're a faithful person," Vernon said. "It was like things were meant to be that day."

Brown's daughter Sadie was born a week after that and a day later Vernon called Brown with a job offer.

"My little girl is six years old, she's literally grown up with these kids," Brown said. "Drake has seen Sadie grow up, I've seen Drake grow up and it's just amazing the way those guys interact with my little girl. It's something else."

End of an era

Northwood concluded the regular season with its third straight conference title. They moved through the first three rounds of the playoffs with double digit wins over Greene Central, North Johnston and Southeast Alamance. Last season they lost in the state championship to Central Cabarrus 65-51. This season they moved down to 2A, but that meant a mathchup with defending 2A state champ, Farmville Central, in the 2A East Regional Final.

"Farmville Central is one of the top programs in the state," Brown said. "Multiple state championships, multiple division one players. We knew going into the game it was going to be a tough game."

Road games come with their own set of adversity. Some you can account for others you can't. Construction traffic on the highway out to Farmville got Northwood off to a late start.

"The bus ride was a bit shaky," Drake said. "I had fallen asleep and I'm sure some of my teammates did as well. Went to google maps to see how far we were away and I realized we were running a bit late."

"We were able to get dressed, we weren't able to sit around and think too much," Brown said. "So I think that was a little bit of a blessing. It's just one of those things you've got to roll with the punches."

Blame the bus or blame the home rims, Northwood did not get off to the start they wanted. Farmville Central guard MJ Williams came out absolutely on fire in the first half with twenty four points hitting six threes, including one from the logo which sent the crowd into a frenzy.

"We knew they could shoot coming into the game, but I don't think we closed out enough," Drake said.

"MJ he's a really good player," Brown said. "We knew going into the game he was one of their better players, we didn't expect him to have that kind of game."

Despite Williams output, Northwood only trailed 44-33 at the half. A switch to a zone defense slowed Williams down and allowed the Chargers to come back in the second half.

"The comeback feeling felt great," Drake said. "We gave the fans some life as well."

The Chargers held Williams to eleven points in the second half, Powell's twenty two helped cut the lead to three with seven minutes to play.

"After I cut the lead to three, I started to feel it a little more than I already had," Powell said.

Farmville Central responded with a run of their own. They were able to get the lead back to seven with less than two minutes to play and that's where it stayed, Farmville Central won 77-70.

"I thought we had a really good chance of winning that game," Brown said. "I thought we would be able to get over that hump. They made some big time shots and some big time plays and we weren't able to get over it."

"When the clock hit zero I was just thinking like 'dang, this story is over,'" Powell said.

In the locker room no word was said until Brown began his post game speech. Powell was one of the players crying, a towel draped over his head.

"The feeling felt bad," Powell said. "That I wouldn't be able to wear a Northwood uniform again."

"You seniors are a special group," Brown said to the team, his own eyes red with tears and emotion. "To be honest guys this group right here is special to me. I was dealing with a lot of stuff this past year and you guys pulled me through without even knowing it."

"I just wanted them to get to that goal and that dream," Brown said afterwards. "I felt more bad for them than anything else."

"We had a good year, we had a year that you'll never forget," Brown closed in the locker room. "I love everyone of you guys."

Brown paused tears streaming down his face.

"Lets get up and pray."

The Northwood team got up in unison, put arms around each other's shoulders and said the "Our Father", like they had after every game that season. This would be the last time together as a team. As they left the locker room they were greeted by applause from parents and fans. Several people dressed in North Carolina attire asked Drake for pictures and an autograph.

"My high school career at Northwood was great," Drake said. "I had great people around me, I came up short a few times, but that's just more drive to continue."

"The way I see it I was very blessed and fortunate to coach a guy like Drake," Brown said. "I've known him since he was in the sixth grade. So I was able to see him kind of grow up and become the kid and the man he is right now and I'm looking forward to what he does in the next chapter."

"This chapter is done, but his basketball career is far from over," Brown finished.

After greeting the fans, Drake goes over and hugs his parents and family. He knows bigger challenges are to come.

"Starting at UNC and ending my high school career at Northwood is something I look forward to," Drake said. "I know there's going to be multiple obstacles along the way."

"High school transitioning to college, you know college is a business now" Drake continued. "Now that I'm a student athlete I'm ready for the challenges, I want the good days and the bad days and the mid days. I'm just going to keep striving to be the best individual I can be."