William C. Powers '79 and his family will be honored in a formal dedication of Powers Field in Princeton Stadium on November 10, 2007. Powers's $10.5 million gift—the largest in the history of Princeton athletics—funds the playing surface installation and upkeep of the teams’ practice fields, creates an endowment for Princeton football, and establishes two financial aid scholarships.

“We won an Ivy League Championship on Powers Field last year, and hope for many future victories," said President Shirley M. Tilghman. “We are most grateful to Bill Powers not only for his exceptionally generous gift to Princeton football, but also for his thoughtful contribution to undergraduate financial aid through two new scholarships, one of which honors his father’s memory.”

“Bill’s gift not only tangibly benefits the experience of our football players and many other student-athletes at Princeton, but it also vividly confirms his public acknowledgment that his own intercollegiate football career at Princeton strongly contributed to his educational and professional development,” said Director of Athletics Gary D. Walters ’67.

Bill Powers said, “I am thrilled that President Shirley Tilghman and Athletics Director Gary Walters are passionate about maintaining the edge of leadership in athletics.”

Powers, a 1970s football hero, grew up in a family dedicated to academics, sports, and hard work. His father, N. Thompson (Tom) Powers, was a superb athlete and scholar who instilled these values in his sons. “My father played football and baseball for Duke,” Bill Powers said. “He held the NCAA single-game record for 42 years for most touchdowns scored. He had my older brother and me out on the field as soon as we were old enough, drilling passes into us. I always knew I would play football.”

Bill Powers became a celebrated defensive back and an All-Ivy punter at Princeton. He ranks fourth in Princeton football for most punts in a career, none of which was ever blocked. His 70-yard punt late in the fourth quarter thwarted a Harvard comeback in a 20–7 Princeton win in 1977 in Cambridge that handed the Crimson their first Ivy loss and remains one of the great Tiger wins in the rivalry. In 1978 he played the best allround game of his career against Rutgers, with an interception, 14 unassisted tackles, a forced fumble, and a 40-yard punting average on 15 punts with 5 punts inside the 10-yard line. That year he received Princeton’s Charles W. Caldwell Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the senior member of the varsity football team who demonstrates the greatest improvement in football.

Powers played with his brother, David N. Powers, a member of Princeton’s Class of 1978, who started at free safety on defense and as a punt returner for the Tigers. “Playing football with Bill was a unique experience,” said David, partner-in-charge of Baker Botts, Hong Kong, where he lives with his wife and three children. “It kept us close. Few brothers in Princeton history spent their college years together and played football on the same team.” David describes his brother Bill as a man “with a zest for life, full of enthusiasm and energy, but also smart, hardworking, loyal, and generous.” The brothers saw Princeton for the first time together in 1973, and Bill was smitten. David took longer to make up his mind, he said, “but for Bill it was love at first sight.”

Despite his success at Princeton, Bill said “part of my passion for football at Princeton came from the fact that it wasn’t easy—the difficulty taught me something. Now, when something is difficult in my life, in my business, I know I can get through it.” Powers hopes his gift will inspire current and future Princeton athletes to strive for excellence, to value leadership, teamwork, competition, and the ability to manage adversity and failure as well as success.

One of the scholarships funded by the Powers gift is named in honor of Tom Powers, who passed away earlier this year. Tom is still a vivid presence in his sons’ lives, and in the lives of many who knew him. As a senior at Duke, he was drafted by the Washington Redskins, and he had opportunities to play professional baseball, but he chose Harvard Law School instead. He graduated cum laude in 1954 and began a remarkable legal career with the same force and discipline that had distinguished him on the playing field. An early, passionate champion of civil rights in the Labor Department, he drafted some of the first legislation for equal employment opportunity. “My father was the fairest man I’ve ever met, with the most rigorous, exacting standards,” Bill said. “Before it was popular, he was an advocate of equal opportunity for women, people of color, and those of different religious orientation and alternative lifestyles. He was aggressive about hiring them and supporting their path to partnership, and for affirmative action training programs in corporations.”

In making the gift, Bill said he hoped it would “assist Princeton in attracting the most highly qualified and talented student-athletes, and that these facilities and resources will enable Princeton’s athletes to perform to the best of their abilities.” He also hoped his gift would send a message to his contemporaries and to future alumni, and inspire them to consider sharing their good fortune with Princeton. Bill’s own philosophy of giving is that philanthropy is one of the most successful investments you can make. “Be generous with whatever you have,” he said. “I believe that you are not known for what you have. You are known for what you give away. As alumni, the debt we owe Princeton is to help give young scholar-athletes the opportunity to develop, and to help Princeton compete for outstanding students.”

Bill Powers graduated from Princeton with an AB in economics and earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a managing director and senior member of the portfolio management and investment strategy groups of the Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), based in Newport Beach, California. Before joining PIMCO in 1991, he was associated with Salomon Brothers and with Bear Stearns as senior managing director.

He has been an active and generous volunteer on behalf of Princeton, in roles that have ranged from service to Annual Giving to membership on the Advisory Committee of the Princeton Varsity Club, and as a local Alumni Schools Committee volunteer. He sponsored the Princeton Football Team and Band’s trip to San Diego to make possible the Tigers’ only West Coast victory, in 2004.

He serves on the boards of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Festival, Sonoma JazzPlus, and the Painted Turtle camp, and he also is a Kennedy Center Trustee. He recently served on the board of St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. Bill Powers and his wife, Carolyn, live in Manhattan Beach, California, with their five children. His younger brother, Thomas Powers, lives in Chicago, and their mother, Mary Powers, lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

(Pictured above: William C. Powers '79 punting against Rutgers in 1978.)