A Fast Break : Powell Bolts Mean Streets of Oakland, Turns His Life and Verdugo Hills Around

Sitting on littered steps at Verdugo Hills High, Eddie Powell is talking about living the good life. Not some dream for the future but the life he is living today.

Less than three years ago as a 15-year-old, Powell was caring and providing for his three younger siblings in Oakland, when his parents would disappear for days and weeks at a time. When Powell wasn’t home, he usually could be found on the streets, selling drugs and hanging out with friends.

All of that left little time for school and studies. That’s why Powell failed to earn even one credit during his freshman year at Oakland High.

Now an 18-year-old at Verdugo Hills, in his fourth year of high school and hundreds of miles from his immediate family, Powell has turned a corner. He knows he won’t qualify to graduate with his class in the spring. He knows his family probably will never see him play in a high school basketball game. But he knows where he has been and where he was headed. And life has never been better.

“I’ve turned,” Powell said. “Big time.”

In one season, Powell also helped turn things around for Verdugo Hills’ basketball team. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound guard averaged 24.9 points a game last season and was the third-leading scorer among area City Section players.

Before Powell came along, the Dons had won four games in two seasons. Last season, they finished 10-11.

“He’s one of those guys that makes everybody else play better,” Coach Scott Kemple said.

Powell enrolled at Verdugo Hills in the fall of 1990 with no high school credits. He did not try out for an athletics team during his first year. Last season was his first in basketball at the high school level.

“I always had it in my mind to play basketball,” Powell said. “I just had to get my head straight.”

Those who have seen him play call him a natural. His moves seem effortless, his instincts innate.

Football co-Coach Buzz Johnson spotted those qualities last spring and urged Powell to come out for the team. At first apprehensive, Powell eventually agreed. Johnson positioned him at free safety and taught him football one step at a time. Powell still doesn’t know all of the rules or strategies, but it didn’t stop him from enjoying an outstanding season. The team won only once, but Powell intercepted nine passes, tops among area players.

“He’s really fun to watch,” Athletic Director Don Scott said. “He’s just one of those gifted athletes. You can’t teach what he has. You either have it or you don’t.”

The same could be said for a stable home life--you either have it or you don’t. Powell had family stability as a young boy, but as he entered his teen-age years stability turned to chaos and confusion.

He is the third oldest of eight children, five boys and three girls. The Powells lived in a poor neighborhood in a small family-owned, three-bedroom house in Oakland. All seemed fine until Eddie’s father, Eugene, was laid off from his job at a nearby bottling plant in the early 1980s. According to Eddie and his mother, Sharon, who still lives with her husband in Oakland, the family then began to unravel.

Eugene, 41, has not worked since. He suffered two strokes in the late 1980s and went on state disability and welfare. He receives dialysis treatment every three days. According to Sharon Powell, her husband’s sickness put a tremendous strain on the family, and on the relationship between Eugene and Eddie.

As Eddie grew, so did the tension between him and his father. Their arguments frequently led to blows. Sometimes, Eddie said, he deserved the beatings. Many times he did not.

“I had problems with my parents,” Powell said. “I was treated bad. They didn’t give me the type of acknowledgment that normal parents give their kids.”

According to James Galloway, Eugene’s younger brother and now Eddie’s legal guardian in Lake View Terrace, normal was no way to describe the parenting that Eddie received in Oakland. Galloway said Eddie’s parents frequently would disappear into the streets of Oakland in search of drugs. They would be gone for days at a time, according to Galloway and Eddie.

Sharon Powell acknowledges her past drug use but says she and her husband have abandoned that life style.

Still, the frequent absences left Eddie in charge around the house. He assumed the responsibility of looking after his younger brother and two sisters without hesitation.

“I had a smart brain and I knew I could be man enough to do it,” Powell said. “I wouldn’t go to school until I found out who was gonna take them to school and who was gonna watch them.”

Eddie was a loving and caring brother, but he admits he was no saint. He too was involved with drugs. He was a dealer and he “made a lotta money.” But, he viewed his doings as a means to an end.

“See, where I come from, there wasn’t very much money,” he said. “Everybody--all families--had to survive . . . work hard for theirs. My family had to work real hard.”

Galloway hardly condones Eddie’s behavior but understands his motivation.

“You can chastise a child for many things,” Galloway said. “But it was a matter of survival.”

Money--which paid for the food--was difficult to come by for the Powell family. Perhaps no one knew that better than Eddie. If his parents knew he had money or drugs, they would demand he hand them over. “They would beat him and take his money and his drugs,” Galloway said.

The strife came to a head one summer evening in 1990. Feeling a pang of hunger, Eddie went into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. His father protested. A fight erupted. It ended when Eugene threw his son out a window.

Immediately after that incident, Eddie decided to move in with his uncle and cousins in Lake View Terrace. Galloway had made the offer to Eddie months earlier when he was in Oakland for his mother’s funeral. He had not visited his hometown in years, and it was not a pleasant visit. Galloway was appalled by his brother’s behavior and the conditions under which the Powells were living.

“It’s like one of those horror stories. You don’t believe it until you see it,” Galloway said. “I knew I could do better for (Eddie).”

Eddie’s move to Los Angeles did not please his father. And it drove a wedge between brothers Eugene and James. The two have barely spoken since, Galloway said.

Two of Eddie’s siblings have since moved in with Eddie’s maternal grandmother. The four youngest siblings are living with their parents in Oakland. Eddie’s mother gave birth to her eighth child, Benjamin, July 17. Eddie has not seen his youngest brother.

Sharon Powell, who has not seen Eddie since last Christmas, said she is making a concerted effort to improve her family’s health and welfare.

“Everything isn’t peaches and cream, but we eat every day,” she said. “My kids are dressed. We still run out of food like we did when (Eddie) was here, but we still eat.”

Food isn’t plentiful at the Galloway residence, either. But that didn’t stop Galloway from urging Eddie to move to Los Angeles. Despite already caring for five children, James and Sherrie Fudge-Galloway took in Eddie and became his legal guardians.

To the Galloways, Eddie is no different than their own children.

“He is my son,” Galloway said. “We only say nephew for the sake of saying it. He is my child. It’s no different.”

Galloway, 35, a gospel singer who works as a custodian at UCLA Medical Center, has made a positive impression on Powell. James and Sherrie, who works as a legal secretary, are making ends meet and providing for a family of eight on about $3,000 a month.

“He doesn’t do the things my dad does,” Powell said. “He stays on top of everything because he’s got a family to take care of and he knows that.”

Although Powell’s move to Lake View Terrace has been successful, it has not been without incident. Galloway said Powell was filled with hate and rage when he first arrived in Los Angeles. “You wouldn’t believe the person he was then and the person he is now,” Galloway said.

Powell has clashed with police “for minor things” since his move, he said. Still, he considers his life style in Los Angeles the good life.

But he misses his family, the “rowdy” city where he spent his first 16 years, and his friends--many of whom haven’t changed.

“It makes me feel bad now because I used to deal drugs and I used to fight,” Powell said. “It really hurts me because I got out of it and they’re still in it.

“The few times that I’ve been (up) there, I try to talk to them to get out--like I did--and start a new life. I tell them I’m willing to help if you help yourself.”

A few of Powell’s friends are in jail on drug charges, he said.

The thought of ending up like his boyhood buddies scares Powell and fuels his dream of earning a high school diploma. If he continues to go to school full time during the regular and summer sessions, Powell could earn a diploma at the end of the spring semester in 1994.

Had Galloway not come to the aid of his nephew when he did, it’s anybody’s guess where Powell would be today. Now, the rest is up to Powell. “I just wish to God I could have gotten him sooner,” Galloway said. “We want to make sure he has the opportunity for a good life from here on out.”