Richy Powell’s retirement has been fairly stress-free the past few months.
As a parking valet at the Northern Hotel, where he’s been working since moving to Billings in April, there have been few job-related worries for the former longtime high school basketball coach.
Well, come Aug. 3, the anxiety level goes way up for Powell, 55. Billings Central principal Shel Hanser on Tuesday hired Powell to be the school's athletic director.
“I guess I wasn’t ready to retire yet,” Powell told The Gazette on Tuesday afternoon. “I miss the activity. I think it’s going to be perfect for me. It’s going to be busy, but it’s the kind of busy I like.”
Powell retired from coaching in 2011 after leading the Glendive girls program for 19 seasons. He led the Red Devils to three Eastern A championships and three runner-up finishes at the Class A state tournament.
He was 248-176 at Glendive and 433-333 in 29 seasons overall as a boys and girls coach. That also included stops at Plenty Coups, Highwood, Shields Valley and Joliet.
After leaving coaching, Powell went to work at the Jock Stop sporting goods store in Glendive. When that was sold in the spring, he moved to Billings, where he latched on to the job at the Northern.
When he learned the Central job was open after Steve Nieto stepped down after his one year there, Powell quickly went after the position. He updated his resume for the first time in a long time and got a library card to use the computers at Billings Parmly Library so he could turn in the proper online application.
“I was very serious about it when I first saw it,” he said.
Hanser said he received about 10 applications for the job and that Powell seemed to be an obvious choice once he made himself available. Powell still knows plenty of coaches and is well-connected with members of the Montana Officials Association, Montana Coaches Association and the Montana High School Association.
“People who knew Richy when he was coaching knew that 24 hours in a day weren’t enough for him,” Hanser said.
Turnover among the Billings coaching ranks has been high the past couple years, and Central hasn’t been immune. Hanser said he hopes Powell, who is a member of the MCA Hall of Fame, can also serve as a mentor of sorts for the school’s younger coaches.
“Our young people need that,” Hanser said. “Coaching is a different beast than it used to be.”
After all those years of trying to beat the Rams at Glendive, Powell now will try his best to see that they are successful in all sports.
One of the first people Powell heard from when news got out about his hiring came from Kayla (McPherson) Rivas, a former player of Powell’s and one of his coaching successors at Glendive. He said she jokingly called him a ‘traitor.’
“I said, ‘Well, kid, you can call me what you want to, but I have to do what I have to do,’” Powell said. “But I got a couple a nice comments from some of the kids in Glendive, too … I wore red for a long time, and green is going to take a long time to get used to.”
Powell’s career of parking cars comes to an end next week. So far, he has a spotless record.
“I haven’t wrecked anybody’s car,” he said. “Hopefully one more week and I’ll get out of here without a mishap.”
Then it’ll be time to take a different set of keys.
