Reform-Minded Chairman at Center of Controversy Jennifer Whitney for The Texas Tribune Gene Powell is an appointee of Gov. Rick Perry. SAN ANTONIO - When Gene Powell first arrived at the University of Texas at Austin in 1964, it was on a scholarship to play offensive guard and defensive linebacker for the revered coach Darrell K Royal. "I was a very average to mediocre football player, and that's probably being generous," Mr. Powell, a real estate developer and South Texas native, recalled during an interview at his San Antonio office this week. More than four decades later, Mr. Powell was asked to return to Austin - this time by Gov. Rick Perry, who needed an ally and strong leader to support his reforms on the University of Texas System's board of regents. While Mr. Powell's battles have moved from the field to the boardroom, his tenure as board chairman promises to be far more memorable than the time he spent on the gridiron. Since he assumed his role in February 2011, the board has become ground zero for a fierce clash between competing visions for higher education in Texas, including two of Mr. Perry's pet issues: how much degrees should cost, and how university faculty members should balance teaching and academic research. The latest commotion came last week, when a Texas Monthly blog post suggested that Mr. Powell had asked Francisco Cigarroa, the chancellor of the University of Texas System, to recommend the firing of the president of the University of Texas at Austin, Bill Powers. Though both Mr. Powell and Mr. Cigarroa deny the story, it triggered outrage among students, faculty members and alumni. Do I like everything that's said about me - or what's been said about my board - and all the things that have been written? Of course not," Mr. Powell said. If you are going to run a large institution, and you are going to do things and change the way things have been done for a really long time, you are going to have some people really like it and some people who really don't like it. Mr. Powell, who holds a master's degree in finance from U.T.-Austin, said his guiding principle was to promote an affordable education for Texas" growing and diverse student population. It is an endeavor the governor is proud of, said Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry. "Quality and affordability can go hand in hand, and Gov. Perry trusts our higher education leaders to strike the right balance," Ms. Frazier said in a statement. The U.T. Board of Regents, under Powell's leadership, has proven they understand this. But from the get-go, Mr. Powell has had trouble advancing his nontraditional approach without rousing opposition. A few weeks after his fellow board members elected him chairman, Mr. Powell praised Mr. Perry's call for universities to create bachelor's degrees that cost only $10,000, saying there was nothing wrong with getting a Chevrolet Bel Air-quality education as opposed to a Cadillac-quality one. The car analogy was not well received, and Mr. Powell later said that he had "sworn off metaphors in my house." Around the same time, he hired Rick O'Donnell, the former executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, to serve as special adviser to the board. Mr. O'Donnell questioned the value of academic research in higher education, a move that exacerbated fears that Mr. Powell's leadership might - as one concerned alumnus, the Fort Worth lawyer Gordon Appleman, put it in a widely distributed letter - lead to "long-term, perhaps irreversible degradation in academic stature" of the state's premier research university. Mr. O'Donnell was terminated after less than two months. Then last May, an internal board memo was leaked. It indicated Mr. Powell supported raising enrollment at U.T.-Austin by 10 percent every year for four years, while simultaneously cutting tuition in half systemwide. Mr. Powell said the ideas in the memo were merely intended to start a conversation. "People during that time would hear about one discussion or another discussion and become very concerned that particular thing was going to get done," he said.