Alabama Names Mic Potter Head Women's Golf Coach
6/17/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
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The University of Alabama named Hall of Famer Mic Potter as its new women’s golf coach, Athletics Director Mal Moore announced today.
“We are certainly happy to have Coach Potter join us,” Moore said. “He brings impeccable credentials to the Capstone and we feel confident that we have hired the very best golf coach available.”
A 1994 National Golf Coaches Hall of Fame inductee, Potter comes to the Crimson Tide after 23 years coaching the Furman women’s team, including 10 years during which he served as the Paladin’s Director of Intercollegiate Golf.
“My wife and I were so impressed when we walked on campus,” Potter said. “Before we visited, we had no idea how beautiful as it is. The athletic facilities, campus wide, were so impressive. We weren’t really looking to make a change but when we saw all that Alabama had to offer, it was something we wanted to be a part of.”
“The golf facility is state of the art, and the academic building (the newly renovated Bryant Hall) is unlike anything I have ever seen before,” Potter said.
He guided Furman to 15 NCAA Championship berths, six top-10 national finishes, including an NCAA runner-up finish in 1987. He also took Furman to an NCAA Regional, every year since the format was put into place in 1993.
Potter has been named Southern Conference Coach of the Year eight times and led his team to 35 tournament titles, which puts him third among active coaches. The Paladins won 10 Southern Conference Championships since the tournament’s inception in 1994.
He coached 16 NGCA All-Americans, eight NGCA All-Scholar Team selections, 38 All-Southern Conference selections, 12 conference players of the year and four conference freshmen of the year.
“Competing in the Southeastern Conference is an appealing prospect,” Potter said. “It is kind of a different level from where I’ve been. And of course the challenge of taking a program that can be one of the best in the country to that level is very appealing.”
Ten of his former players have gone on to play the LPGA Tour, including 2004 graduate Sarah Johnston, who earned National Golf Coaches Association Second Team All-American honors and was named the Southern Conference Golfer of the Year as a senior. She is currently playing on the LPGA Future’s Tour.
“I came to Furman as a walk-on,” she said. “I wasn’t very good coming out of high school and by the time I left, I was an All-American and he had a lot to do with that. He is a very good coach, who knows a lot about the golf swing. And what’s great about him is that he knows that everyone’s swing is different and he works to make your individual swing better.
“He is not only a great coach, but he’s a great guy and a very hard worker,” Johnston said. “He will be missed at Furman and Alabama is getting a great coach.”
Potter replaces Betty Palmer, who retired this spring after 17 years coaching the Crimson Tide women.
A 1977 graduate of Cortland State University, Potter majored in physical education while earning four varsity letters: three in soccer and one in golf. He is married to the former Kim O’Branski of Ithaca, N.Y., and the couple has two sons, Ryan and Corey.
