Powers played professionally for six years in the American Football League (AFL) with the Oakland Raiders.
As a safety, he started for the 1967 AFL Champion Raiders and in the second AFL-NFL World Championship game, known now as Super Bowl II.
[2] Following his playing career, Powers was an assistant coach under both Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne at the University of Nebraska from 1969 through 1976.
One year after he left Nebraska, Powers took his unranked Washington State Cougars into Lincoln and knocked off the fifteenth-ranked Huskers in the season opener at Memorial Stadium.
The violation was in regard to the use of a fund established outside the university for the purpose of paying Powers for debt he assumed while negotiating to become Missouri's head coach.