SIMSBURY – Marshall Potter ran cross country when he was a freshman at Simsbury High School. It was something to do. He wasn’t very good at it.
It led, naturally, to him trying indoor track that winter. He competed in the hurdles. He liked the hurdles. Maybe he would try that in outdoor track. He tried the shot put, threw it 23 feet. It didn’t speak to him, in the sense that some day, maybe, he would be recruited to go to UConn to throw it.
But that’s what happened. Potter, a senior, holds the indoor and outdoor school records in the shot. He has won the Class L outdoor title twice and has competed at the national championships. He will throw at UConn next year.
First, he would like to win an indoor shot put title, something that has eluded him the past two years. He will get his last chance at the Class L championships Sunday at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven. Potter has finished second the last two years.
This year he is the favorite, seeded first, by over six feet. His throw of 60 feet, 4 inches, which won the CCC championship and broke a 25-year-old meet record, is his personal best.
“I have known him since his sophomore year,” Simsbury indoor track coach Sarah Blair said. “I’ve seen his growth from then on. He’s one that’s not willing to settle.”
Potter mainly played soccer and baseball when he was younger. But after breaking his foot in soccer in eighth grade, he decided to try something different. His mother had run track in high school, and he had run in a few road races with her.
He began to throw his freshman year in outdoor track and qualified for the state meet in the discus.
“I didn’t even know what I wanted to do at that point,” he said. “I was just having fun. but I thought, ‘Wow, I can do something with this.’”
The other competitors in the throwing area talk and help each other and give each other tips and soon Potter found out about Damien Larkins at Bloomfield, who coaches the state’s best throwers, and off he went that summer to Larkins’ Throwhawks Club.
His sophomore year, he played football and got bigger and stronger. He began to focus on the shot. He tried to spin but that wasn’t working so he just used the glide method, and he found himself understanding the mechanics and technique and the kid who threw the shot 23 feet as a freshman was now throwing it 48 feet. At the CCC indoor championships, he threw a 51 and finished second by an inch. And by his junior year, he had mastered the spin.
He won the outdoor Class L title as a sophomore (53 feet, 6 ½ inches) and again last year (56-4). Potter finished third in the outdoor State Open (58-2 ¼).
But he hasn’t been able to capture that indoor title. His sophomore year, he was close. He had a perfect throw, his last throw.
“It felt so great that I wanted to see it fly – and I fell straight out of the circle,” he said. “I fouled the winning throw. I believe it was a winning throw.
“I had the clap going. The whole indoor track place is clapping. And I fell down. Not the first time I’ve done that.”
Last year at Class L, he lost to Greyson Golda of Bethel, who threw a 54-3 ½ to Potter’s 53-1 ¼.
“I didn’t throw far enough to win Class L,” he said. “It was a rough meet. Second for the second year in a row. It was frustrating.”
This year, it’s all come together. The physical part. The technique. The mental aspect – “It’s almost all mental,” Potter said.
He has his routines on meet day. He gets a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich with home fries from the bagel place in Simsbury. He listens to music. Before the event, he concentrates on his breathing.
“If I can control that, I can control how I’m going to compete,” he said.
Thomas Matlock of East Lyme won the Class M title Thursday night with a throw of 63-6, breaking his meet record of 63 from the year before. Potter will face him in the Open Feb. 22. But he’ll worry about that next week.
There is pressure to compete well in the circle, but it’s there that Potter also finds an escape.
“When I’m in the circle, I kind of don’t have any thoughts or feelings, I just try to throw (the shot) as far as I can,” he said. “It’s relaxing.”