Mic Potter Position: Head Coach Experience: Fifth Year Alma Mater: Cortland State, 1977

Entering his fifth season at the helm of the Alabama women's golf program, and his 28th overall in college golf, head coach Mic Potter has already established his own legacy.

Potter, who came to the Capstone after a Hall-of-Fame career at Furman, led the Tide to its second NCAA Championship appearance in program history in his very first year at Alabama and repeated the feat in 2007, 2008 and 2009, reaffirming his status as one of the prominent coaches in women's collegiate golf.

The honors continue to pile up for Potter, who helped the Tide become a power to contend with in the ever-competitive SEC. The veteran coach won his 10th Conference Coach of the Year award overall and his first in the SEC when he was named the league's Co-Coach of the Year alongside Georgia's Todd McCorkle in 2007.

Potter's 2008-09 team was a fixture in the top 10 nationally. The Crimson Tide finished the year 11th at the NCAA Championships and were ranked eighth nationally in the NGCA Coaches' Poll and seventh in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. The Tide captured their fifth tournament victory under Potter's guidance in 2009 at the First Market Bank Intercollegiate. Alabama also finished tied for second at the SEC Championships and second at the NCAA East Regional.

UA had two players, Kathleen Ekey and Camilla Lennarth, earn first-team All-SEC honors in 2009 while rookie Brooke Pancake was selected to the league's All-Freshman Team and awarded second-team All-SEC recognition.

For the third consecutive season in 2009, Potter produced All-Americans with Ekey and Lennarth garnering honorable mention accolades. In 2007 Potter helped two-time All-SEC performer Jenny Suh leave as an All-American. Potter followed that up when Ekey earned All-American honors in just her first season at Alabama. Ekey broke Suh's school-record single season scoring average by posting a 73.30. Ekey, Lennarth and Pancake all earned NGCA All-East Region honors as well in 2009.

The 2007-08 season saw Alabama put together its most successful season in school history. The Crimson Tide earned its third straight berth to the postseason and finished the season ranked No. 12 in the nation - a school record.

Alabama won three tournaments on the season, including the Crimson Tide Classic in record breaking fashion. Alabama turned in a school-record 54-hole score of 861 (-3) at the Ol' Colony Golf Complex. UA shot a final round score of 279 (-9), also a school record to wrap up the Crimson Tide Classic.

Five Tide golfers finished in the top 10 in the tournament to lead Alabama to a 42 stroke victory over runner-up LSU at the par-72, 6033 yard Jerry Pate designed course. Ekey shot a school record and women's course record score of 65 (-7) to finish with a 54 hole score of 203 (-13) to win the tournament.

At the NCAA Championship Potter led Alabama to its second best result in school history. The Crimson Tide placed 12th overall and again improved on the previous year's results - something Alabama has accomplished each season under Potter.

The Crimson Tide also earned tournament titles at the Wildcat Fall Invitational with a score of 889 and at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic. After the Classic, Sarah Sturm was named the Golf World Player of the Week.

The legendary coach made an impact from the start. In his first season, Potter led his team to a tournament championship in his very first outing by winning Alabama's own UA-Ann Rhoads Invitational in early September.

The team set a school record that spring by shooting a 290 at the LSU/Cleveland Classic in March, and recorded two top-five finishes in the spring season. After qualifying for the East regional, the Tide put together an unlikely postseason run by defeating Virginia in a playoff to advance to the school's second-ever NCAA Championship.

Looking back on that resume, it comes as no surprise that Potter had his very first Tide team competing for a national championship. On June 17, 2005, The University of Alabama named 1994 NGCA Hall of Fame honoree Potter as its new women's golf coach. By doing so, the Crimson Tide added one of the most illustrious names in women's golf to its already rich golf heritage.

Potter, one of the most experienced and successful coaches in the nation, has one of the most outstanding resumes in the nation, having guided Furman, a school competing in the Southern Conference, to national prominence in a long career with the Paladins.

A 1994 National Golf Coaches Hall of Fame inductee, Potter spent 23 years coaching the Furman women's team, including 10 years during which he served as the Paladin's Director of Intercollegiate Golf.

During his two-decade tenure with the Paladins, Potter guided Furman to 15 NCAA Championship berths and six top-10 national finishes, including an NCAA runner-up finish in 1987. He has yet to coach a season in which his team has not reached NCAA Regional competition, a streak dating back to 1993, the first season in which the Regional format was established.

Potter's coaching accomplishments stand by themselves as an indication of the abilities of the 53-year old mentor. In addition to these outstanding achievements, his players have recorded astounding success, at both the intercollegiate level and in the professional ranks.

The ability to build and maintain a program are certainly among Potter's strengths when considering the amazing run of success he had throughout his career at Furman. Potter took the school, with an enrollment of about 2,500 students, in to the upper tier of women's golf schools, leading the Paladins to unprecedented heights.

Potter was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year eight times and led his teams to 36 tournament titles, which puts him third among all active women's golf coaches. To put that remarkable statistic in perspective, the Alabama women's golf program had won 19 team titles through the beginning of the 2005-06 season, a span of 31 years.

The Paladins won 10 Southern Conference Championships since the tournament's inception in 1994, including the 2004-05 championship.

He has coached 19 NGCA All-Americans, 11 NGCA All-Scholar Team selections, 38 All-Southern Conference selections, three first-team All-SEC performer, 12 conference players of the year and four conference freshmen of the year.

One of the most important standards of success for any coach in major collegiate athletics is his or her ability to place players in the professional ranks while guiding them to a degree. Measuring Potter by these standards again places him among the very best in the nation.

In 2004, Potter had seven of his former pupils on the LPGA tour, more than any other college coach from one school. In fact, only four schools; Arizona, Arizona State, Florida and Texas, had more than seven athletes on the LPGA player list in 2004. More importantly, each of the seven players coached by Potter had earned a degree.

In the exceedingly competitive LPGA atmosphere, Potter's former players have had long, successful careers in professional golf. Through the end of the 2004 season, former Potter pupils had amassed over 65 seasons on tour and over $8.5 million in career earnings.

Leading that group is former Furman standout and Paladin Hall-of-Famer Dottie Pepper. Pepper had an illustrious LPGA career, winning 17 events, including the 1992 and 1999 Kraft Nabisco Championships. She earned over $5 million in career winnings before ending her 20-year professional career in 2003.

By any standard, Potter has proven himself to be one of the best women's golf coaches in the entire nation for more than two decades. He has built a successful program and maintained that by recruiting and cultivating talented players who advance to the professional ranks and obtain their degrees.

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. The couple has two sons, Ryan and Corey.