Kenan Stadium Tour
• Entering his sixth season with the Tar Heels.
• Coached tailback Ronnie McGill, who returned from an offseason injury to lead the team with 530 yards and five touchdowns in seven games in 2005.
• Carolina was second in the ACC and seventh in the country in kickoff returns in 2005, Powell's first year as special teams coordinator.
• Carolina returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in 2005, one by Brandon Tate and another by Wallace Wright.
• Carolina ranked second in the ACC in rushing in 2004.
Andre' Powell enters his sixth year as Carolina's running backs coach and second as the Tar Heels' special teams coordinator.
Last season, Carolina ranked seventh in the country in kickoff returns and returned two kickoffs for touchdowns.
The Tar Heels return all three primary runners from last season, including senior Ronnie McGill, who returned from injury to lead the team with 530 yards rushing. Barrington Edwards, who ran for 129 yards in a win at NC State, also returns along with Justin Warren.
Carolina had one of the top rushing attacks in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2004, averaging 176.3 yards per game and 4.9 per carry, the second best mark in the league. Three different Tar Heels - Jacque Lewis, Ronnie McGill and Chad Scott - each had at least one 100-yard rushing game and all three averaged over five yards per carry. Scott exploded late in the season with three 100-yard rushing games, including a career-best 175 yards in Carolina's 31-28 win over No. 4 Miami. Scott rushed for eight touchdowns, the most by a Tar Heel running back since 1997.
In 2003, Carolina used a two-tailback offense most of the season and McGill led the team with 654 rushing yards, including 244 against Wake Forest. Carolina's running game helped lift the Tar Heels to a 16-10 win in the 2001 Peach Bowl as Willie Parker rushed for 131 yards and a touchdown. Parker signed a free agent deal with Pittsburgh after the season and helped the Steelers win a Super Bowl in 2005.
Powell came to Carolina after spending five seasons at the University of Virginia, where he coached wide receivers and running backs. He coached several former Cavaliers who currently play in the NFL, including tailbacks Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones and wide receivers Germane Crowell, Pat Washington, Charles Kirby and Terrence Wilkins.
Powell coached running backs during his first season at UVa in 1996, then tutored the wide receivers for three years before returning to teach the running backs in 2000. He came to Virginia from Army, where he was the running backs coach in 1995. He also spent the 1991 season at Army as the inside linebackers coach. In between stints with the U.S. Military Academy, Powell was the running backs coach at VMI in 1992 and at Rhode Island in 1993 and 1994.
Powell earned his bachelor's degree in health, physical education and recreation in 1989 from Indiana, where he was a two-year letterwinner at running back. He was a member of Hoosier teams that participated in the 1986 All-American Bowl and the 1988 Peach Bowl and was the team's Most Improved Player as a senior. He was the lead blocker for 1,000-yard rusher Anthony Thompson in 1988.
Powell began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Indiana and was a coach on the 1988 Liberty Bowl squad that defeated South Carolina. After two years at Indiana, he was a graduate assistant at South Carolina in 1990.
A native of Lockhart, S.C., Powell attended Lees McRae Junior College in Banner Elk, N.C., for two years (1984-85) before transferring to Indiana.
An avid fisherman, Powell has won several tournaments and has been featured in North Carolina Sportsman magazine.
Powell and his wife, Joann, have a son, Andre' II, and two daughters, Alayna and Mikala.
