Coach Ralph Potter in front of Sports and Activities Center
photo by John Shearer
When Ralph Potter was a high school student at McCallie School, he worked as a summer counselor at the McCallie Camp and found he liked the times when the campers would compete against each other as teams.
“I enjoyed that and it made me feel I had an impact if the boys played well,” he said.
That started him thinking seriously about a career as a coach and possibly following in the footsteps of his father, Pete Potter, who was then the head coach at McCallie.
Almost 40 years later, Ralph Potter is still feeling the rewards of coaching, now as the McCallie head coach himself.
And others are noticing the rewards, too.
In fact, most high school football observers might be hard pressed to call anyone else the best football coach in the Chattanooga area over the last 20 years or so among larger schools now that Benny Monroe and Tom Weathers have retired.
This year’s McCallie squad closed out another successful season Nov. 16 with a respectable 10-2 record, but a campaign that ended a little sooner than Blue Tornado supporters hoped after a 10-7 loss at Memphis University School. MUS ended up losing Friday night to Brentwood Academy, 28-6, in the state championship game in Division II-AAA.
McCallie had actually beaten Brentwood Academy, 31-27, on Oct. 5.
A few days before the season ended and while he was still hoping to reach Cookeville after losing only to Montgomery Bell Academy during the regular season, coach Potter sat down in his office and reflected on this season and his entire career.
He said at the time that he liked this year’s Blue Tornado team led by quarterback DeAngelo Hardy and plenty of others
“The most important thing all the time is senior leadership,” he said. “We were blessed last year with some good seniors, and this year has been good or better in the standards set for the team.”
Coach Potter is known for his intense and serious -- but respectful and polite manner -- around other adults, and for trying to get a lot out of his players through conditioning and constant repetition and positively challenging them.
As a result, he might not always judge himself as a coach in the same way others might look at him.
“I’m pretty hard on myself,” he said with a smile. “And how do you judge success? Are you pleased with it? I’ve always tried to do my best. I tried to aim most of the time at a higher goal.
“And it’s hard to separate myself from it to some degree. But it’s a challenge to me personally from a moral level, psychological level, and spiritual level to be the best I can be in service to people.”
While sports observers of today might strongly associate coach Potter and even his family with McCallie School, he has uniquely served as head coach of three different private schools that now are in Tennessee’s Division II-AAA.
A former quarterback at McCallie, he led the Blue Tornado to a victory over rival Baylor his senior year in 1980 in a game that would help propel McCallie to a 10-year domination in the series after Baylor held a strong edge in the 1970s. He also was a shortstop on the McCallie varsity baseball team.
He played quarterback at UT-Chattanooga as well and, after following his earlier urge to be a coach, he then launched his career in 1985 at Hixson as an assistant under coach Nubby Napolitano.
“I enjoyed athletics and football and schemes – taking that and matching it up with an individual person’s strengths and weaknesses and personality and helping them execute at a high level,” he said. “I always thought that was a fun challenge.”
After one year at Hixson, he then began teaching at GPS from 1986-88 and also helped his father’s football teams at McCallie when the two schools had a strong coordinate program. At GPS, he was also the varsity basketball coach and also worked with the Bruiser track program.
“It was interesting because I didn’t know anything about basketball,” he said with a laugh.
In 1988, his coaching career took an interesting twist when he was hired to be an assistant football coach at – that’s right – rival Baylor. An obvious developing coaching talent, then-head coach Fred Hubbs allowed the 20-something-year-old coach to serve as defensive coordinator from 1989-93.
The once-proud Red Raiders had fallen into mediocrity during the 1980s, but with coach Potter and others helping coach Hubbs, they eventually developed into a local power again with outstanding teams from 1991-93.
Coach Hubbs decided to step down at that time, and coach Potter was given the opportunity to serve as head coach beginning in 1994. He never got to face his father, Pete, as a head coach due to the unfortunate fact his father was battling cancer and had to step away from coaching.
Ralph Potter said he admired his father greatly and proudly displays his picture in his office. While his office has no windows, the picture does offer a window into their lives.
While both were successful coaches, Ralph admitted with a smile that he takes after his mother more in that he is not as patient as his father.
He also said his father never tried to influence him too much. “My dad was always reserved about things like that, sometimes too reserved. He always let me make my own decision. But I would call him for advice.”
Regarding their coaching philosophies, he did say that he follows his father in thinking that football offers a good opportunity for boys to develop moral and physical strengths and learn to face challenges.
After a slow first year in 1994, Ralph Potter took Baylor to the third round of the playoffs in both 1995 and 1996 when the public and private schools were still playing against each other. He also had a 2-1 record against McCallie during that stretch, and that no doubt caught the attention of McCallie athletic director Bill Cherry.
But coach Potter, whose wife, Jennifer, did dorm duty in Lowrance Hall at Baylor after they originally lived in Lupton Annex, was actually quite content there. As a result, that was the hardest coaching move he has ever had to make, he said.
“When I decided to come back over here, it was not something I’d thought about. But it seemed like the right thing to do,” he said, adding that it was very difficult to tell the Baylor players and then athletic director Austin Clark. “He didn’t like it but he really understood it.”
Coach Potter added that he greatly enjoyed his time at Baylor and still has a lot of good friends there. “Their approach to athletics is very similar” to McCallie’s, he said.
After losing in the regular season and playoffs in 1997 to Baylor as both teams transitioned into Division II, his McCallie teams then reeled off nine straight victories over Baylor and claimed a state championship in 2001.
He decided to take the coaching and AD job at tradition-rich Brentwood Academy from 2007 through the football season of 2011. He returned as McCallie’s coach before the 2012 season.
He said various factors were in play when he both went to Brentwood Academy and left, but has now decided he is at the right place.
“Each one of those schools has a different personality and different culture, and I concluded McCallie fits my personality best,” he said.
Although Baylor had gained the upper hand in the series during coach Potter’s absence, he has since helped McCallie win four of the last five against their rivals after he lost the first two upon his return.
Now having completed his 25th season as a head coach, he is still enjoying the work, despite the fact he has to spend a good part of his Saturdays and Sundays and rest of the week focusing on football during the season. He does admit he takes a brief break on Saturdays to watch the SEC game of the week on CBS.
But he enjoys the grind of trying to reach the end product of making the execution on the field look like it was done with ease.
“Your guys have to regard what you do as simple, but you have to make it complex enough that the opponent is not comfortable with you,” he said of the weekly goal.
Although admitting he has always looked at coaching as a year-to-year proposition, he also still seems to enjoy the larger goal of positively helping young men, just as he did as a McCallie Camp counselor years ago.
“I can’t imagine not doing it,” he said.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Ralph Potter next to picture of his father, Pete Potter
photo by John Shearer