ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV

The case for the former:

Powers never envisioned herself as an All-American heptathlete when she arrived at Arizona in 2021. Nobody did.

Powers chose the UA primarily because of academics. She wanted to study a branch of architecture known as . Relatively few colleges offered that major.

Powers also had a passion for track and field. She reached out to the UA coaching staff, asking if she could be part of the program.

The answer was yes. But Powers wouldn’t be a featured performer.

“I was really just added as a training partner,� Powers said.

She trained with Skyler Sieben, who had recorded the fifth-highest heptathlon point total in UA history that spring. Even as she set personal bests in training and meets, Powers didn’t achieve anything close to the school record she set this past weekend until the Bryan Clay Invitational two months ago. Her 5,789 points were 78 shy of the UA’s all-time mark.

“I genuinely was just here because I had a passion for it,� Powers said. “I've always been a goal-oriented person, trying to just be a better person than I was yesterday, so that was really my motivation in the heptathlon — just trying to better my own PRs.

“As a freshman, I was hoping maybe one day I would break 5,000 points. Maybe one day ... if I really shot for the stars, I'd be top 10 (at) U of A, which would be 5,300.

“No one would have ever believed, myself included, maybe any of my teammates or former coaches, that I would be standing here fourth with 6,000 points. It's pretty crazy.�

Powers finished the with 6,008 points — including a stretch-run kick in the 800 meters that enabled her to fly by several competitors. She set personal bests in five of the seven events and had a season best in another.

No one who knows her well was the least bit surprised.

Powers always has been a high achiever, a hard worker and a tough and determined competitor. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA and posted the same mark while pursuing a master’s in marketing.

“She’s only had one B her whole, entire life,� said Hollan’s mother, Laura. “It about crushed her.�

Dino Dodig, who coaches Arizona’s multis, once told Powers that she’d be “chronically underpaid for the rest of her life.� If she had a salary of $2 million, Dodig explained, she’d provide $5 million in value.

“Whatever expectations are put in front of her,� Dodig said, “she will always exceed them.�

Powers had a feeling that her performance in Eugene, Oregon, would be special. She invited multiple family members — mom Laura, sisters Gigi and Jamie and grandpa Mike, aka “Cap� — to watch it.

“We had a whole squad out there,� Powers said. “It meant everything.�

‘Prove them wrong’

The Powers family moved from the Phoenix area to Brentwood, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, ahead of Hollan’s sixth-grade year. The family had roots in Tennessee: Hollan’s other grandpa, James Sr., had been the , a small town about 65 miles west of Brentwood. He was also the town dentist.

Powers tried out for the middle-school track team and was one of only two sixth-graders to make it. But she was more serious about competitive cheerleading. One problem with that: Hollan would sprout to 5 feet, 10 inches. That meant she had to be a “base.�

“It’s not the funnest place to be,� her mother said.

When she tried out for the high school track team as a freshman, Powers caught the attention of a local club coach named . Kinder participated in the 1988 Olympics as a decathlete before getting into coaching.

“Hey, I think you'd be good at this thing called the pentathlon,� Kinder told Powers.

“I had no idea what he was talking about,� she told me this week. “But I thought I'd give it a shot.�

The pentathlon, typically held indoors, consists of 60-meter hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot put and the 800. The heptathlon expands the hurdles to 100 meters and adds a 200-meter sprint, plus the javelin throw.

As a senior in 2021, Powers powered Brentwood to a . Although she was excelling in track and field and wanted to pursue it in college, academics remained her primary focus when it came to picking a college. So she headed back to Arizona.

By the time Dodig started working with her in 2024, Powers had set many personal bests and eclipsed 5,000 points at the 2023 Jim Click Shootout. But Dodig believed Powers had the potential to do so much more. Others didn’t share that opinion.

“When I got here, I heard a couple of things,� Dodig said. “Some people told me she was an extremely hard worker but doesn’t have the things that are needed to become a future star.

“I immediately went to her: ‘This is what they think of you. This is now a hit on you and me. We’re going to take this very personal, and we’re going to prove them wrong.’ �

Powers needed work on her technique, especially in the events in which she was a relative novice. The javelin was one of them. Chucking a spear felt unnatural to her. It’s not the sort of thing that comes up often in one’s day-to-day.

She also needed to get healthy. She’d been battling an injury to her left foot — her takeoff foot for the high jump and long jump. The injury limited how much she could practice those disciplines.

After finishing second in the pentathlon at the 2025 Big 12 Indoor Championships, Powers returned home “and her foot was on fire,� Dodig said.

The decision was made to have surgery. Powers missed the '25 outdoor season.

About a year later — with considerable help from trainer Taylor Webb — Powers peaked. She finished first in the heptathlon at the Bryan Clay Invitational to qualify for nationals. Then she finished fourth in Eugene to earn first-team All-American honors.

“Ninety-nine percent of athletes would not make what she did,� Dodig said. “It was too many things to fix in a very short period of time. ... It’s just so difficult.

“She’s a tough girl.�

For Dad

Dodig and Webb could see the pain Powers endured while pushing through that foot issue.

Less visible: Powers’ internal anguish while dealing with grief.

Her father, James Jr., died in April 2024. He had suffered from frontotemporal dementia — — for about eight years.

“That was a very difficult period for all of us because they were so young,� Laura Powers said of her three daughters, who were 15 (Gigi), 14 (Hollan) and 11 (Jamie) when their father was officially diagnosed. “We persevered. You have to soldier on.�

One of the ways Hollan coped was to throw herself into the cause. She learned everything she could about dementia. A friend told Hollan about Tucson’s annual . She became a participant, invited teammates to join her and became an Alzheimer’s ambassador. (Older sister Gigi is an ambassador, as well.)

Frontotemporal dementia never caused James Jr. to forget who his family members were.

“For him, it was more so decision-making, kind of getting stuck in situations, not knowing what to do, language processing,� Hollan said. “He became very quiet.�

That change in behavior was incredibly frustrating for the Powers family. They were used to James Jr. being “that guy in the room,� Hollan said. “The most social person. That was probably the hardest part.�

I asked Hollan whether it was difficult to be so far away toward the end.

“Yes,� she said. “I wanted to be close to family. But I also know my dad always told us to follow our dreams. I think he would have been more upset knowing that I didn't do that.�

A little over three weeks after her father died, Hollan posted a personal-best score of 5,432 points in the heptathlon at the Pac-12 Championships.

“Maybe she was out there running for her dad,� Laura Powers said.

Going pro

Hollan’s grandpa Mike — a former Naval officer and Delta Airlines pilot; hence the nickname “Cap� — has become a father figure for the family, Laura said. He recently helped Hollan assuage some guilt she was feeling about pursuing track professionally while delaying her career in the real world.

Cap’s advice: You’re 23 years old. You’ve got plenty of time to become an architect. Your prime as an athlete is right now.

So track will be Powers’ track for the foreseeable future. She’s planning to go to Europe for some hurdling events. The next opportunity to compete in the heptathlon is the USATF Outdoor Championships July 23-26.

Powers will continue to train with Dodig, who believes she has another 400 points in her. If Powers sticks with it, stays healthy (the foot is an ongoing concern) and continues to refine her technique, Dodig thinks can she be an Olympian in 2032.

That’s a longer timeline than it would take Powers to become a CEO if she joined the workforce, Dodig assured me. He could see that happening within three years.

Despite proving adept at multitasking in college, Powers wants to pour 100% of her time and energy into track.

“I never really thought this could be something I could do,� she said. “But I think it's worth taking a shot on yourself and seeing where it will bring you. I have the opportunity to do so. I think it's worth giving all I got.�