Staff Profile: Director of Sports Performance, Eric Potter

In the first edition of meet the ODU Athletics staff, we profile the director of sports performance for Olympics sports, Eric Potter. Continue to check back with ODUSports.com as we profile our student-athletes and staff members.

When one door closed for Eric Potter, another door opened. Potter was a four-year member of the pitching staff at the University of Maryland and became a 19th round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics. After spending time in the unforgiving world of minor league baseball, Potter turned his career to another interest, strength training.
 
One door closed and another door opened for Eric Potter when his baseball career ended, however, it was not the first door he thought it would be.
 
"I did personal training for about a year and realized I needed to get back into athletics," Potter said. "Personal training was not my forte. Luckily right place, right time, we were in the Norfolk area so I started interning with football and I really liked it and then moved into a full-time position."
 
Potter soon transitioned into the sport performance coach for the Monarchs men's basketball program. Potter's background was in baseball but it wasn't a difficult transition to basketball, but there were some differences.
 
"The whole baseball mindset is more casual, there's so many baseball games, where basketball,  I think the stress level is a lot higher," Potter said. "One of the cool things with basketball is such a small number of guys have an actual impact on the game. Baseball you have the eight position players and multiple pitchers. In basketball, you have your top-five guys, and maybe 8-9 guys in the rotation. From my perspective, they need to fire on all cylinders the best they can."
 


When Potter was younger, he dabbled in many sports but by the time he hit high school, sport specialization was the latest craze and he chose baseball. 
 
As a junior in high school, Potter was introduced to lifting, conditioning and nutrition. He turned that interest into a baseball scholarship to the University of Maryland where the interest grew.
 
"Throughout my time there, lifting was a big aspect of development. My junior year we got a new head coach and he turned the dial up on lifting and nutrition even more." Potter said.
 
Potter has fit in nicely in the athletics department, he also works with the men's and women's soccer and men's and women's golf teams, but especially with the men's basketball team where he is just one of the group.
 
"Often times the strength coach is more of a behind the scenes guy and probably doesn't get the credit they deserve in terms of player development and their contributions to the program," ODU men's basketball head coach Jeff Jones said. "Eric is extremely professional and efficient. He's viewed by the coaches and players alike as part of the team.
 
I do think over the years, a big part of the credit to our success goes to Eric and how he is able to help our players become better physically, but also a big part of it is injury prevention."
 
Outside of basketball, Potter enjoys the stock market, but also nutrition and cooking, which also finds its way back to the student-athletes. 
 
"We try to work with their diet the best we can. Sometimes with college athletes, we know the quality of food isn't going to be great, but the quantity is the issue. We'll have guys who eat poorly but are also not getting enough calories. The calories are the biggest thing I try to focus on."
 
Along with working on diet and nutrition, Potter learned that due to their schedules, basketball players tend to have a long way to go in the weight room.
 
"In high school, a lot of basketball players play AAU tournaments all year and don't actually train, so that is one of the biggest things, was realizing how under-trained basketball athletes are when they get to campus."
 
And with basketball players getting acclimated to the weight room when they get to Norfolk, it gives Potter and Old Dominion men's basketball head coach Jeff Jones a chance to mold their ideal student-athlete.
 
"I'm a basketball coach and he's the strength coach. We work together towards a common goal. As long as his training methods fit in to how we want to approach things, he kind of has a carte blanche. I don't want to micromanage where he is the expert. I trust him completely."
 
Jones is not the only one around the basketball program that trusts Potter.
 
"Eric is a guy, I think the whole team would agree, that makes you feel very comfortable in his space as far as in the weight room and getting better," former Monarch Aaron Carver said. "He really helped me focus on stuff in the weight room that directly transferred to the court. We did a lot of leg explosion stuff to try and get quicker and I feel like he takes the time to look at each individual and what they need."