Warren Anthony Powers (February 19, 1941 – November 2, 2021) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player and coach. He was the head coach at

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

in 1977, and the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

from 1978 through 1984, compiling an overall

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

record of

Early years

He was an all-state high school

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Am ...

at Bishop Lillis High School from

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the List of United States cities by populat ...

, and played

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

, earning three letters as a Husker. As a senior, he helped lead

Bob Devaney Robert Simon Devaney (April 13, 1915 – May 9, 1997) was a college football coach. He served as the head coach at the University of Wyoming from 1957 to 1961 and at the University of Nebraska from 1962 to 1972, compiling a career record of . ...

's first Nebraska team in

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...

. Powers played professionally for six years in the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

(AFL) with the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

. As a

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly di ...

, he started for the 1967 AFL Champion Raiders and in the second AFL-NFL World Championship game, known now as

Super Bowl II The second AFL-NFL World Championship Game (known retroactively as Super Bowl II) was an American football game played on January 14, 1968, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. The National Football League (NFL)'s defending champion Green Bay P ...

Coaching career

Following his playing career, Powers was an assistant coach under both

and Tom Osborne at the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...

from

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

through

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 ...

. After leaving Nebraska, Powers became the head coach at

Washington State Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a U.S. state, state in the Northwestern United States, Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first President of the United States, U.S. p ...

. One year after he left Nebraska, Powers took his unranked Washington State Cougars into Lincoln and knocked off the fifteenth-ranked Huskers in the season opener at Memorial Stadium. The following year in 1978, Powers became the head coach at

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. With the Missouri Tigers, Powers again went to Lincoln with another unranked team and pulled off a victory over the second-ranked

team. Following that game, it would be another 25 years until 2003 when the Missouri Tigers would again defeat the Nebraska Cornhuskers. During his tenure at Missouri, Powers compiled a record, including four straight bowl appearances from 1978 to 1981. His best seasons came in

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – In ...

and

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

, where he posted consecutive records. In addition, his Tiger football teams went 3–2 in

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

s, defeating LSU in the

1978 Liberty Bowl The 1978 Liberty Bowl, a college football postseason bowl game, took place on December 23, 1978, at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee. The competing teams in the 20th edition of the Liberty Bowl were the LSU Tigers of the Sout ...

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

in the

1979 Hall of Fame Classic The 1979 Hall of Fame Classic was a college football postseason bowl game that featured the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Missouri Tigers. Background Missouri had finished 4th in the Big Eight Conference, in their second straight bowl appeara ...

, and Southern Miss in the 1981 Tangerine Bowl. During Powers' tensure, Missouri also played in the

1980 Liberty Bowl The 1980 Liberty Bowl, a college football postseason bowl game, was played on December 27, 1980, in Memphis, Tennessee. The 22nd edition of the Liberty Bowl saw the Purdue Boilermakers defeat the Missouri Tigers, 28–25. Background After 9– ...

, losing to

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mo ...

, and the

1983 Holiday Bowl The 1983 Holiday Bowl was a college football bowl game played December 23, 1983, in San Diego, California. It was part of the 1983 NCAA Division I-A football season. It featured the unranked Missouri Tigers, and the ninth ranked BYU Cougars. ...

, losing to a

BYU Cougars The BYU Cougars are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Brigham Young University (BYU), located in Provo, Utah. BYU fields 21 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) varsity athletic teams. They are a member of the West Co ...

team led by quarterback

Steve Young Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccane ...

. On October 24, 1979, the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

's Committee on Infractions publicly reprimanded Missouri for a violation of NCAA Constitution related to a failure to exercise institutional control. The violation was in regard to the use of a fund established outside the university for the purpose of paying Powers for debt he assumed while negotiating to become Missouri's head coach. NCAA regulations require the university's involvement when its coach receives a cash supplement related to duties he is performing on the institution's behalf, and the NCAA found that Missouri had failed to do so. After a disappointing 3–7–1 season in

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

that concluded with another loss to rival

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

, Powers was relieved of his duties.

Death

Powers died on November 2, 2021, in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Head coaching record

References

External links