Jim Potter: A New Beginning
Jim Potter was hired as a teacher in the P.E. department at Trinity in 1965, and was also given the task of overseeing the intramural program. At the time, the intramural program was floundering, with very little student participation and even less funding and organization. Jim was always driven to give his studentst the best experience possible, and his mindset was no different when it came to the intramural program. He immediately set to work improving the program, growing it enought within the first three years to begin receiving funding to pay a head student official, and later to pay a staff of around 20 students of all different ethnicities and walks of life. This was not the only area that Jim focused on though. He also wanted to improve on the elements of the program, while at the same time adding new aspects that would get students excited about intramurals. He worked on getting the word out about intramurals, rapidly increasing the popularity of flag football in particular, and he also began adding events like the turkey trot and other new sports and events to the program as well as incentives for students to give their dedicated participation such as intramural champion t-shirts, which are commonly passed down from alumni to current students, and an intramural dinner at the end of every year. These elements saw great success in the program, and by the time Jim decided to leave Trinity, student participation had grown to over 70%.