Hockey coach Katrina Powell: Being the best just as important as Olympic gold

NSWIS women’s hockey head coach Katrina Powell has levelled her goal of being the best possible player she could be, with winning Olympic gold after being inducted into the Hockey Australia Hall of Fame.

Powell is an icon of Hockey, and enjoyed a career that included Olympic gold at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Games. The hockey mentor scored 141 goals in a career that spanned 253 games for Australia.

While the numbers display Powell’s talent, she was humble upon looking back on her career, saying that having a home Olympics was special and that her goal was only ever to be the best she could.
“I feel supremely lucky that I had supportive parents, and was a good enough player to play in an era alongside some very talented teammates and to have had involvement with great coaches,” Powell reflected.

“I was also very lucky to have a home Olympics, and win at that too. It is such a rare event, and it was so nice.

“For me, it is really important that as a player you are always trying to be the best you can be. If you are going to work hard at something, then the objective should always be to be your best. I am really proud that I played to that standard and it is just as important as winning Olympic gold.”

Now on the road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a coach with NSWIS, Powell continued that she finds it just as gratifying to be guiding the next generation as now as she got out of being a competitor herself.

“I get a lot of satisfaction out of coaching,” she said.

“We’ve had seven of our NSWIS players named in the Australian Junior World Cup team and I couldn’t be more proud of the program we have set up to make that happen.

“I love seeing them achieve their goals, and I want to see young female athletes get the same experiences out of hockey, life and being an athlete as I had.

“My plan is to be here at NSWIS for the next four years. There is part of me that half expects to wake up one day, just like when I was playing and say “Oh gosh, I can’t do this anymore”. So I am planning for life after sport and studying a business degree, but the reality is I don’t see that happening soon and the focus is all about coaching.”

Overall as a player, Powell competed in three Olympic Games, winning gold at two, as well as triumphing at World Cup, Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games tournaments.