Linebacker Power Echols steps in to lead the defense in the 2024 season

Linebackers coach Tommy Thigpen enters the Bill Koman Practice Complex at 5:45 a.m. Practice starts at 6:30 a.m., but he sees the same sight every time he enters the team room 45 minutes early. 

Senior linebacker Power Echols is in the corner meditating. 

Echols is the first one on the field before practice, stretching by himself. If his feet, hands or eyes don’t feel right, he’ll warm up again. If another player isn’t stretching adequately, Echols will show him how to do it right.

“It's just awesome to have a person like that in the room, because it sets a standard and a culture in the room,” Thigpen said. “[Someone] that young people can look to like, ‘You know what? I want to carry myself like that.’”

When former UNC linebacker Cedric Gray told Echols about his decision to opt out of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and declare for the NFL draft, he anointed Echols as the leader of UNC’s defense. Although Thigpen and sophomore linebacker Amare Campbell said Echols has become more vocal since Gray left, the senior linebacker still feels he isn’t as loud as Gray.

“I don't necessarily speak a lot, but I speak when something needs to be said,” Echols said. 

But coaches and teammates see Echols as a leader who is not afraid to hold others accountable and offer advice to any player willing to listen.

So, as Echols enters the next season, there’s no learning curve.

“I don’t feel like Power’s changed too much,” graduate rush Kaimon Rucker said. “Even though there’s a fear of passing the torch, it's just one of those things where Power has always been a leader.”

‘Rent is due today’

When Jonathan Cannon Jr. transferred to Julius L. Chambers High School in Charlotte — Echols' high school — Cannon thought he was one of the best defensive ends in the state. Now, as an offensive lineman at North Carolina A&T, Cannon admitted seeing Echols practice for the first time was crazy.

“When they moved me to offense, I was like, ‘Dang, I gotta hit this guy to play? I gotta get him?’” Cannon said. “And [he’s] coming downhill trying to take my helmet off.”

Cannon said working with Echols made him realize his work habits weren’t up to standard. So, he’d make sure to lift with Echols, adding extra reps, just like his teammate did. Playing both offense and defense, Cannon said that more time in the weight room helped prepare his body to endure the season.

Another high school teammate, Zairion Jackson-Bass, had a similar wake-up call from Echols in 2019.

Several Chambers players, including Jackson-Bass, were moved up to varsity to provide depth for the NCHSAA playoffs. 

But those players had practiced too carelessly for Echols’ liking. So, he called them out before the group dispersed after practice.

His message was simple: always be ready. 

While he is now a defensive lineman at Yale, Jackson-Bass said his high school coaches wanted him to play offensive line instead. The future Bulldog didn’t share that same desire. 

But when Echols emphasized the importance of preparedness after that practice, it flipped a switch.

“It just made me actually want to try more and have the coaches look at me like, ‘OK, this guy is actually serious,’” Jackson-Bass said.

During the 2019 playoffs, Chambers had a daunting task. The Cougars were a No. 10-seed and had to get past No. 2-seeded Mallard Creek, who had beaten them earlier that season.

All week, Echols said he thought Chambers would win. On game day, as Echols gave his pregame speech, Cannon said he had a different fire in his eyes. 

“The costs are the costs,” Cannon recalls Echols saying. “Rent is due today.”

After the speech, Echols took Cannon around the locker room. Echols cried because he was that ready to go. He hugged Cannon and told him, “I love you. We're gonna do this game together.”

Chambers beat Mallard Creek, 13-7, and went on to win the state championship that year.

“That [speech] fired everybody up,” Cannon said. “Power doesn’t really talk a lot, but that’s why it was so special.”

Getting the last word

During his time at North Carolina, Echols has proven he’s more than a vocal leader — he’s a mentor, too.

Redshirt first-year linebacker Caleb LaVallee did not enroll early at North Carolina and missed spring camp. He said he was fortunate to have Echols to lean on and answer his questions.

Being a mentor isn’t new for Echols, either. His mother, Astarlove Robinson-Russell, recalls him staying up at night to respond to Instagram DMs from players asking him how to get better.

During his first year at UNC, Robinson-Russell said Echols studied his fellow teammates’ positions, so he’d be able to help them adjust to their roles. 

Now, Echols enters the season with the task of leading a much-maligned defense and helping new players adjust. 

He’ll still utilize his quiet type of leadership. The type of style that, as Robinson-Russell puts it, reaches back to pull his guys up. 

“He’s gonna send lifelines to help you get up there with him," Robinson-Russell said. 

And he’ll use his voice and his speeches, too. After every defensive meeting, Echols takes the floor. 

Defensive coordinator Geoff Collins no longer ends meetings with with his own spiel like he has everywhere else in his almost 30-year-long career. Instead, Echols has the final word.  

“That’s how much respect I have for him and how much respect the players in the defense have for him,” Collins said.

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