During her Missouri Sports Hall of Fame induction speech on Tuesday, Casey Garrison Powell said when she committed to Missouri State in 2008, she was asked if she was the next coming of Melody Howard or Jackie Stiles.
Garrison Powell’s answer? She simply wanted to be the best version of herself. She looked up to both of those Lady Bears greats, but didn’t want to be compared.
“I just wanted to do the best that I could,” Garrison Powell said.
Garrison’s best was enough to easily be in the discussion of best two or three to ever wear a Missouri State uniform.
Name etched in MSU record books
The Bolivar High School graduate was a four-time first-team all-Missouri Valley Conference selection from 2008-12 and the league player of the year as a sophomore. Stiles is the only other Lady Bear to win first-team MVC honors four times.
Garrison Powell ranks behind only Stiles on the Lady Bears career scoring list, with 2,271 points, and had double-digit points in an amazing 118 of 130 career games.
The Lady Bears were Missouri Valley Conference regular-season champions her senior season, with Garrison Powell leading the way. Her college coach said the numbers speak for themselves but don’t tell the whole story.
“She’s just a great person. She’s humble, she’s selfless and she was a great teammate,” said Nyla Milleson, Garrison’s coach at Missouri State. “You could go on and on about what type of player she was.
“She was one of the most intelligent, most instinctive players and so talented. There wasn’t anything on the floor that she couldn’t do. She was just a joy to coach.”
Garrison Powell piled up impressive offensive numbers, but she was much more than a scorer. She was on the MVC all-defensive team and was top-10 in several career categories, including rebounds, field goals made, free throws made, steals, assists, games played, minutes and 3-pointers made.
She and Carly Deer have the only triple-doubles in school history, with Garrison Powell getting 11 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists against Tulsa as a sophomore.
Garrison Powell wanted to be ‘decent' at everything
Garrison Powell said that from an early age she wanted to be more than a scorer.
“From a young age I wanted to be at least decent at everything, so that way I could be on the floor,” she said. “If I’m only good at one thing, then I might be taken off the floor in certain situations.
“I just made sure to try and rebound, pass the ball, score, get steals. Do all those things so I could stay on the floor. That was how I tried to play the game. Just trying to go out there and do what I can for my team through all aspects of the game.”
With an uncanny and rare ability to use either hand to shoot, Milleson recalled one game in particular in which Garrison Powell played with a broken right hand.
“She scored 37, shooting left-handed,” Milleson said. “The numbers speak for themselves.
“In terms of best overall, in all aspects of the game, she was probably the best I ever coached. She wasn’t the fastest or the quickest, but she was a tremendous defensive player because she understood angles.”
‘It was bigger than basketball'
But on-court accomplishments are only a small portion of what Garrison Powell takes away from her playing days.
“The best part of being a college student-athlete are the relationships that I built,” she said. “That has become the greatest part as these people became my family and a part of my life forever.
“To be able to win a regular-season (title) with them, and to continue to stay in touch with them, is special. Four of my teammates were my bridesmaids at my wedding. It’s just those connections. It was bigger than basketball for all of us.”
Growing up in, and raising, a basketball family
She credits her parents and siblings with much of her success and specifically pointed out older brother, Corey, who played basketball at Southwest Baptist University.
“I was 8 or 9 years old when he was playing,” she said. “I did look up to Jackie Stiles and Melody Howard, but mostly it was my siblings who were playing and who I grew up watching.”
Garrison Powell now works from home for Jack Henry and Associates, but maintains a close association with basketball. Her husband, Matt, is head girls’ basketball coach at Glendale High School. The couple’s two young daughters — Jada and Kennedy — also are playing youth basketball.
“We go to a lot of basketball games and we travel a lot,” she said.
Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Basketball Luncheon inductees
- Kim English (former Missouri standout player, now head coach at George Mason)
- Buford Goddard (legendary high school and college referee from Jamesville
- Casey Garrison Powell (Bolivar High School and Missouri State star player)
- Chris Carr (from Ironton, a standout player at Southern Illinois who played six NBA seasons, now assistant coach for Drury University men’s basketball)
- Steve Frank (retired Strafford High School girls’ basketball coach)
- 1982-86 Logan-Rogersville High School boys’ basketball program
- 1980-83 McDonald County girls’ basketball program
- 1963 Exeter High School boys’ basketball state championship team
Men’s Filbert Five
- Rand Chappell (Glendale High School and Missouri State)
- Dr. Kirt Hartzler (Willard High School and Evangel University)
- Rick Pickren (Grandview High School, Valparaiso, Eastern New Mexico
- Sam Pugh (Branson High School, Pittsburg State)
- Korry Tillery (Parkview High School, Drury and Evangel University)
Women’s Filbert Five
- Andi Haney Beene (West Plains High School, Harding University)
- Courtney Creed (Ash Grove High School, Southwest Baptist University)
- Honey Scott Pickren (Forsyth High School, Moberly Area CC, Missouri Southern)
- Katie Pritchard (Waynesville High School, Drury University)
- Meghan Waggoner Vanslyke (Carthage, Johnson County CC, Central Missouri)
