Micah and Elle Potter brought their NBA and Division 1 college sports experience to Guam for special summer camps. They spoke with Pastor Walton this week.
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Episode Transcript:
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the Lead Pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend this twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church as we interview our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There’s just one service during the summer months at 10AM on Sunday.
We’ll have Japanese and Korean translation during that service, and that’s also when we livestream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, the Waiting Room of Life from Habakkuk chapter one. Let’s begin today’s harvest time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. It’s actually good to be home. Faith and I have been gone for a couple of weeks. And, so back this week and feel awesome to be back in our house and our own room and back at Harvest.
This is our family. So, so good to be back. It will be good to see people again on Sunday. And, yeah, we would like to invite you to come if you’re listening and you don’t have a church home. We’d love to have you come and join us this Sunday.
We’re going to be preaching a message from Habakkuk chapter one. Chris was just mentioning that he didn’t think I’d preached from Habakkuk one the last seven years, and I don’t think I have. So this will be a start of a new book in the Old Testament. Very interesting discussion that takes place between prophet Habakkuk and God in Habakkuk chapter one about waiting and about God’s timing. So I’d invite you to come and join us.
I promise you, you’ll find a group of people that are going to worship God genuinely. I think you’ll sense the Spirit’s presence, and we’re going to lift up the Word and just find out what God has to say about our lives. So let me invite you to join us this Sunday. I’m really glad to have some special guests, here on Harvest Time with us. Micah and Elle Potter are on island for a couple different things I’ll tell you about in a minute.
But first of all, welcome to you guys. Thanks for coming.
Elle Potter: Thank you.
Micah Potter: Yeah, thank you. We’re really excited to be here.
Gary Walton: Mike and Elle are here for ministry sports camp week. Micah is a current player in the NBA the Utah Jazz, couple other spots you’ve been at, I think Miami.
Micah Potter: Yep. Miami and then Detroit.
Gary Walton: Okay. Detroit. Elle’s a former standout volleyball player at, Loyola?
Micah Potter: Loyola Chicago. Loyola Chicago. Yeah.
Gary Walton: Okay. And, really glad to have both of you, a trip that came together a few months ago and, you guys are here, running a couple camps. Micah, why you tell us about that?
Micah Potter: Yeah. So, we got in last Saturday, with the plan of running some camps this week. We had volleyball camps on Monday and Tuesday, and then we had basketball camps, Wednesday, Thursday. And then Friday, we’re having kind of like the finishing, tournament games. So we have some championship games going on from the tournament aspects of both volleyball and basketball.
And then Friday night, we’re gonna have like a final team get together, for, you know, some games, winning some prizes, having a lot of different fun, and then also being able to share the gospel and have a gospel opportunity as well. So we’re excited.
Gary Walton: Wow. Super glad to have you here. You guys are gonna be with us on Sunday in case I forget to say that later. Mike can share a testimony in the service, so that’ll be fantastic as well. I’m really glad to be able to talk with you and introduce you a little bit to our church family and people that are listening across the area.
Let me start up just by asking a little bit about your college careers. Elle, tell me about that. What was playing volleyball at Loyola like?
Elle Potter: Yeah. So volleyball, you commit to a college pretty young usually. And so I committed to Loyola Chicago when I was a sophomore in high school. And I was telling some of the girls this past week that looking back, making such a big life decision at a young age, it’s kind of crazy.
Gary Walton: Wow. Yeah.
Elle Potter: I had an awesome support system with my parents and my family. And so one of the things was that when I was looking at different universities that I wanted to go to and play volleyball, I kind of had a pros and cons list. What stuck out coaches, competitiveness, campus, what I wanted to study, what I wanted to do post college. And so all of those combined ended up being Loyola University in Chicago. And, it was kinda shell shocking when I got there on campus being one of the only freshmen.
So being super young, having a lot of older teammates, we were not very good. We ended up being, like, five and twenty four that season. So one, I go from super competitive, really good club teams to then you go to college and you’re hoping that your college career and your college time is, like, the peak and, like, you’re finishing out. But that was the beginning of mine was we were in a really tough spot. And so, that thing kind of began, like, my freshman journey of, like, who is Elle outside of volleyball?
And I sometimes would get so embarrassed wearing, like, my volleyball stuff because we were not very good because I was solely placing my identity on my sport, my stats, how we were gonna do Friday and Saturday nights. And so along that season, was a lot of growth of just understanding who I was going through, and figuring out what I like to do for fun. There was a lot of peer pressure involved and falling into sin and then having to figure out, like, who am I? And so I had the opportunity after my freshman year to be a part of an internship in Huntington Beach, California with Fellowship of Christian Athletes whereas basically 15 college volleyball players all lived in a house together. Base it was like the best summer of my life.
We lived in the same house. We all woke up at, like, six in the morning to do quiet time, went to the beach to work out, then we would do community outreach, worship nights, inviting the community to our church on the weekend, all that kind of stuff. And so that summer was really the summer that I truly got saved and God changed my heart because growing up in a Christian household and going to Christian school, a lot of things were head knowledge at that point. And, I got A’s in hymnology and bible class, and I could recite every hymn or bible passage that we needed to, but it was never fully in my heart. And so that summer, everything changed.
And so when I came back to school my sophomore year, then it was like a completely different Elle. So my identity wasn’t based off of how I was playing or how bad we were playing. And so then that just shifted my mindset of like, okay, why am I playing college volleyball? I’m playing because God gave me the abilities to do so and then I’m able to be a light, and use my skills, and basically be could be the only bible that some people read. So managing my emotions, managing how I talk to my teammates, how I communicate, all that kind of stuff.
And so, we always say it’s kind of funny. The beginning of my career was really low, but then ending my college career, we did ultimately make it to the conference finals. We unfortunately did not win. Oh. And so now looking back, their season and, like, all the seasons in the past, like, they’re doing fantastic.
It’s fun to cheer them on from afar. So, yeah, I enjoyed my time at Loyola.
Gary Walton: I wanna ask you some more about kind of that personal spiritual story here in a minute. Let me come back to that. Micah, what about you? College, started at Ohio State. You’re from Ohio, right?
Micah Potter: Yeah. Grew up in the Cleveland area. So I grew up a diehard Ohio State fan.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Micah Potter: So, I always tell people my two dream schools were Ohio State and Duke. And then when Ohio State came and offered, it was kind of like it’s the place. The place. And also, you know, all of your people at church back home were like, why are you waiting?
Like, I didn’t commit on the spot, but it’s like, they’re all like, why are you waiting? Like, this is, this is it. This is Ohio State.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Micah Potter: So I eventually committed to Ohio State. My, It was the spring of my junior year of high school. I think it was actually I remember the date. I think it was March 20, my junior year of high school. And then actually transferred to go to a different school called Montford Academy in Florida, my senior year of high school.
They’re like a perennial national powerhouse for high school basketball. A lot of draft picks, a lot of NBA players. Freshman year, went to Ohio State and the head coach told me specifically he brought me in to change the culture. He had kind of started to he had some pretty serious health problems and, stuff that’s just not in his control. And he wanted to he kind of had lost that, you know, you know, team aspect a little bit.
So freshman year was rough. We were terrible. It was like the first time we hadn’t made any kind of postseason play in years at Ohio State because before they were used to final fours, tournament runs, all that kind of stuff. And so we were really bad. And then my soft then my head coach got fired, at Thad Matta after my freshman year, which was devastating.
So they brought in a new coach. Just being blatantly honest, we didn’t see eye to eye. I was never his recruit, so it kinda just sometimes just play the political ball side. And so I tried to make it work for a year because I loved Ohio State and I didn’t want to leave. But after that year, it just it just wasn’t working.
And I was advised by multiple people, you got to get out of there. If you want to have any future to play professionally, you got to get out of there, because you got to play. And so, I decided to transfer to Wisconsin and it actually ended up being a mega blessing because, in the process of transferring, there’s a lot of uncertainty, You know, I didn’t want to leave, but going somewhere I’d never even thought about going to the University of Wisconsin. But in the process, two of my roommates that I had at the University of Wisconsin were both believers. At Ohio State, I had no believers on the team.
I was alone all the time. And at Ohio State or, Wisconsin, excuse me, I had two believers that I got to hang without, you know, out with all the time. So when everyone else was out partying or doing whatever on the weekends, we were at home playing Mario Kart on the Wii or, like, watching Star Wars or something like that. So it was a lot of fun. And then also three days after I got on campus at Wisconsin, Elle and I got introduced.
So it’s kind of like a cool God thing.
Gary Walton: Like, the whole thing
Micah Potter: out. Exactly. Like, you have no idea. There’s a lot of uncertainty. And then within three days, boom.
So that was a really cool kind of thing that happened to show that God was really showing me that that was where I was supposed to be. And then I had to go through the whole transfer process, you know, at that point, you know, now you can transfer and play right away. At that point, you still had to sit of your So that was really helpful for us, you know, developing our relationship. We had a lot of games, like away games on Saturdays and I couldn’t travel, because I was sitting out. And so we had a lot of Saturday away games.
We would have practice Friday morning. The team would fly out to go wherever they were playing. And then I would leave right after practice to go to Milwaukee. She was in Chicago. She’s from Milwaukee.
I was in Madison. Milwaukee is like the perfect midpoint to meet. Sure. So I would drive to Milwaukee. She would take the train from Chicago to Milwaukee.
And I got to meet her family very early on, and I got to know her brothers, her both are older brothers very early on. It’s like the first time I’m visiting, I’m sleeping in the same bedroom as her two older brothers. It’s just kind of like an intimidation So, but it was really good. It was kind of a baptized by fire kind of thing, but it was great. It really helped us get to know each other really well, helped her family get to know me.
And it was amazing. So then I was able to start playing. That was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Got to have, a lot of winning situations.
We won the big 10, my first year plan, then COVID hit and then canceled everything. So we didn’t get to see our tournament run. But we had won our final eight games to win the Big Ten outright. And then everything got canceled. So it was kind of disappointing to not be able to see us, you know, finish the season.
But we still got to end the season with a championship and with a win, which doesn’t normally happen unless you win the national championship. So that was really cool. We ended up losing to Baylor that next year in the, second round of the NCAA tournament. Baylor went on to win the national championship. It was a really tough game, but Baylor was just the best team in the country.
And then my career was over. So but it was good. I’m so thankful for the whole all the learning experiences and then the actual chance to transfer and meet Elle and just go to Wisconsin, meet my roommates. They were groomsmen in our wedding, so it was a really good chance.
Gary Walton: Let me ask you guys both this question. I’ll go back to you, Elle. How did that shape you? I mean, this is a really it’s a significant thing. College athletics, big time college athletics.
All the things going on, pressures, how how did God use that?
Elle Potter: Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of things in athletics then do transfer into the real world, into a real adult job, per se. And so, you do learn a lot of discipline, whether that’s, having to wake up and figuring out when are you going to do your quiet time? When are you spending time with the Lord? Is that in the morning when you wake up, okay, that means that you need to carve out more time, before you’re going to your lifts, going to your classes, all that kind of stuff.
And so I had a mentor that she she and I met probably every other week, and, she was asking me about something. And, what she said, like, really stuck with me, but she was like, you make time for the things that matter.
Micah Potter: Yeah.
Elle Potter: And if you’re not making time for, like, your relationship with Jesus, like, that’s does that really matter to you? And so that was I think discipline overall is something that was really instilled and I think Micah can relate to that as well. But the discipline of just, getting up, doing the things that you need to do, respecting your coaches even if, you don’t see eye to eye Exactly. That then can happen in your real job. And so there’s a lot of things like your timeliness, all that stuff.
But, I also there’s a big thing of at the time when I was in the moment, I think I was really confused as to why I was maybe the only underclassman that then, like, continued out and then being, like, the only senior. Mhmm. Because that felt really alone. Wow. But looking back on it, it was a really cool opportunity to be kind of that, like, mama hen in a way.
Because once I got to my senior year, I had I can’t even remember. There was, like, maybe seven or eight underclass or freshmen and then, like, seven sophomores. So there’s a majority of underclassmen, young girls who just left high school, just left their mom and dad. Like, it’s scary to live in Chicago, plus there was COVID, all that stuff. And so I was able to just open up my apartment.
We would watch TV shows that they wanted to watch, but they didn’t have, like, a TV or cable, but I was the only one who had it. And so they’d come over. I’d make a bunch of food, like chop up some vegetables, make cookies, and just like having them in my house. And so, like, I wanted a space that they felt loved and cared for. And it wasn’t necessarily me saying all these things or like, is what I believe in, like, shoving it on them.
It was like, this is how I am. Like, I have the joy of the lord. And I wanna invite you guys over because I want you to feel, like, loved. And then that would open up conversations later on of, like, why did you and Micah get engaged while you’re in college? Why are you guys getting married right after college?
Like, why aren’t you just traveling with him? And it’s like, well, no. Like, we wanna get married before we live together and spend the rest of our lives together. And so those are really those are really cool conversations that I do cherish and, like, looking back at that, ultimately, then grateful that I had that opportunity to kind of be that almost that only influence that they had to look at. And so I hope that answered the question.
Gary Walton: No. It’s really good. Actually, really helpful. I think people will be interested in that whole piece of the story. Micah, let me push you forward a little bit.
May maybe to the whole thing. So your college career, now your professional career. And and maybe you could answer I’m I’m sure you guys share this, but your your Christian faith as an athlete. I’m sure for both of you, I mean, that’s kind of what you’re talking about, Elle. Some some pressures, I’m guessing, especially for you.
Yeah. Pressures and then both of you together as a couple now. I mean, how do you live out your Christian faith in that kind of a?
Micah Potter: Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I can attest hospitality is one of Elle’s greatest gifts. She still does that with our friends in Utah, saved or unsaved. She’s incredible at it.
But it’s it’s I had to learn. It’s like when I was at Ohio State, you know, I was alone. Yeah. And it was miserable. That’s like my least favorite thing in the world is being alone.
I’m a people person. I’m a relationship person. But you learn to figure out ways and maybe that’s finding relationships and friends, you know, personal, like really good friends outside. But then, like Elle said, like showing that love to your teammates. So I really don’t I kind of, I guess it’s not a regret, but it’s a learning experience when I was at Ohio State because, when I got to Wisconsin, I feel like I got a lot better at that.
And maybe it was because I had people around me that also kind of had to go through that same process, the, two Christian teammates that I had. But having guys over for Bible studies, having guys over for movie nights, just different things like that to show them love and all that kind of stuff. And then like Elle said, it’s like showing them that love and living that love, but then that’s when they start to ask questions. That’s the thing that I think I’ve noticed the most, in my career is like sometimes you don’t want to just throw it in their face, right? Because that can come across as in a negative way.
But if you live and demonstrate the love of Jesus in your life, then people start to ask questions of why you’re different.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It’s really helpful. Thank you. I’m actually, I got so many questions. I’d love that we had more time.
Yeah. Let me kinda take that same track and I’ll bring this back to you, Elle. So you guys are fairly newly married. How long have you been married? Four years.
Okay. So four years in a I mean, this has been challenging. Right? Micah’s playing in the NBA, travel lifestyle. I mean, how does that work?
I mean, it’s marriage is hard, right? You’re trying to figure out marriage. And I’m not asking you to spill all the beans, but it’s got to be such a challenging part too.
Elle Potter: Yeah. I mean, but it’s fun. So I always have to remind myself that not everybody gets to experience that. When we first got to Utah, we didn’t know anyone. And so I remember specifically, there was one weekend Micah had to travel somewhere, and I was like, I’m all alone.
And I was so sad. Yeah. And then, like, looking back at this now, like, almost well, three seasons later, I’m like, Utah is my home. Yeah. I could pick up my phone.
I could probably scroll through 45 people that I could call on any given day and be like, hey.
Hey, what a are you doing? That’s great. So that’s that’s definitely challenged me where I have to go out and build a community and I have to go meet friends. But the biggest way and so many people ask me this. They’re like, Elle, like, how do you have so many friends?
Or how are you able to find such, like, good friends right away when you move places? And I always tell them, like, because we find a local church. And, like, our our local church back in Utah, Gospel Hope,
Gary Walton: Which Harvest has a long term connection with multiple people.
So that’s a cool connection.
Elle Potter: Which is really cool. So, yeah, we have such deep relationships there. Like I would call almost all of those people family at this point. We’ve got a family that always watches our dog. So they’re they’re always sending us photos of her.
But, yeah, like, developing relationships with people at the church because maybe they necessarily don’t know everything that goes on in, like, the NBA life and how there’s different challenges, but we align on, like, the deep things. And so a huge encouragement for me and just, even going to church, like, it’s kind of it sounds kind of funny. There the first, like, Sundays that we were there, Micah’s gone. And so a lot of people were like, oh, like, where’s Micah? Like, why where is he?
I was like, oh, like, he’s got basketball practice. And they’re like, they practice on Sundays? And I’m like, yeah, basketball doesn’t stop stop on Sundays. And so, one of the older gentlemen in church, he was like, I think you’re missing someone. And I’m like, yep.
So, like, you get used to going to service alone, but then in the summer, it’s so fun to, like, go to church together. Yeah. And so, yeah, like, having a church family is definitely the biggest, route of having a community. And then, throughout, you get to meet different people, different wives or girlfriends, of players or staff members. And those relationships are awesome as well because you relate, to, like, your husbands having similar jobs.
And you’re for me, that’s more of, like, my mission field in a way. And so I’m able to be that light for them because those relationships might not be as deep rooted, but then I’m able to, like, recharge when I’m back with, my people from church. So we’re super thankful. We’re super blessed. And they’ll definitely be the biggest and saddest goodbye when we do leave, but we’ll be back.
So
Gary Walton: Micah, real quick. What’s, so what’s immediate in front of you? You’ve been at Utah for a couple years. Just career wise, what’s immediately in front of you?
Micah Potter: Yeah. So I’m a free agent this summer. K. We’ve been in Utah the last three seasons, we’ve loved it.
But we have no idea. A free agency opens July 1. The draft is going on right now. And so it we’ll we’ll kinda figure things out. We’re not expecting just because there’s kind of like tier lists of free agents.
We’re not really expecting to hear much. We’ll we’ll about in well, excuse me. We’ll hear about interest from different teams. But as far as, like, actual contract situations, we probably won’t hear too much until a little bit later in the summer. But right now, we’re technically still in Utah.
Once we get back, we leave the island, we go back to Utah. We’ll be there for a couple more weeks, and then, we’ll go to Houston for some training. I’ve got a trainer down there, and we’ll, you know, have the opportunity to kinda ramp it up, towards the end of the summer as far as training goes. And then we’ll figure it out. But where you really have no idea, that’s kind of the lifestyle of the NBA and free agency.
It’s just you have no control over your life. I mean, you can get traded at any point, like you have to move across the country. There’s very little, you know, social stability in this job. Yeah. And it’s a business.
But God’s in control. We’ve been doing this for a couple years and God’s been very good to us. So, you know, we’re just gonna take it day by day and trust God.
Gary Walton: Well, I’ve heard that theme throughout this little conversation, right? We gotta set our hope in God. Our foundation, our stability. That does not change. I mean you guys probably have the extreme of this, but everybody’s going through some sort of uncertainty in life.
And man, if we learn that, that my hope, my foundation, my security is in Jesus, that really provides some hope, some direction. Long term goals, can you set them? I mean, what does twenty years now look from now look like from Micah and Elle?
Elle Potter: Oh, wow.
Micah Potter: So I’ve always had the goal of playing for ten years in the NBA, and that’s, pension years. So in the NBA, they actually have a very good pension program. If you get to three years, you qualify for pension. But then if you get to ten years, the benefits increase significantly, with like health insurance for your family, different things like that. So that’s always been my goal.
I’d love to play as long as possible. Thank, you know, thank God I’ve been able to stay healthy. Injury free? Yeah. I mean, major injury free.
You always have little bumps and bruises, ankle sprains, whatever, but nothing serious, thankfully. And then I don’t know. You know, God willing, we’ll have some kids twenty years down the line. That’s something we’ve talked about. Well, you know, we we wanna have our own family.
Honestly, I’d say probably our biggest prayer request over the last year has been more ministry opportunities, which is why when this opportunity here on Guam came up, we really wanted to jump on it and why it came to fruition so quickly in a short window of time. You know, it’s one of those things when we first got married, you know, we wanted to I felt we really needed to get ourselves established. We moved 10 times in our first year of marriage.
Gary Walton: You’re a champ Elle!
Micah Potter: Yes, seriously. And it’s all because of me, not because of Elle. So I got a gem for sure. But, it was really hard to kind of even just find opportunities besides just with your teammates with that small little bubble we had because we were just all over the place constantly.
And so, with the stability of the last three years being in Utah, we’ve been able to kinda settle a little bit. Mhmm. That was probably been the biggest prayer request that we’ve had. And so I’ve always thought, you know, my grandpa was a pastor, my dad’s a pastor, and so I’ve always kind of had that idea of ministry in my mind. Growing up, I always wanted to be a pastor.
God’s kind of changed that direction, obviously, a little Yeah. But my dad always says Jesus didn’t start his ministry ’til he was 33.
Gary Walton: So you got time, man.
Micah Potter: I’ve got time. I’m I’m only 27. So we’ll see. God’s in control. You know, you just gotta trust him day by day.
Gary Walton: Okay. I love that. Elle, anything to add to that?
Elle Potter: I mean, that’s pretty spot on. Yeah. Yeah. I’m excited to see where we are in twenty years. That’s the thing is looking back almost every couple years, it’s like you would never imagine, like, four years ago when we got married.
Never would imagine us living in Utah.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Elle Potter: And then also, like, being here in Guam, it’s like there’s so many things that, God continues to provide. And so fully surrendering that over to God and being like, like, you take the control. Like, this is your plan. Like, wherever we end up is your plan A for us. And so then I have that mindset when I talk to people because they’re like, oh, like, why aren’t you concerned about where you’re moving or why aren’t you a little more stressed?
I’m like, because there’s really no point to be stressed because God’s gonna provide. He’s gonna take us where he needs to be, and he kept us in Utah for three seasons. And if he thinks it’s the best time to take us and plant us somewhere else, then so be it. And we’ll be excited wherever we end up. We’ll still miss Utah.
Yeah. But
Micah Potter: That’s why I’m excited for your message on Sunday. I feel like God’s timing is a big thing in our lives right now. And it’s just like because we have no idea what’s gonna happen. Yeah. And so waiting on God’s timing, it’s we’re excited for Sunday.
It should be a good message. We’re looking forward to it.
Gary Walton: Well, we’re really glad that you guys are here. Actually, we wanna say that, I know you guys are busy. I there’s this little tiny window, and you guys were willing to say, hey, we’ll travel halfway around the world in this little window. I know you got, you know, season preparation and all the craziness of your life. So we wanna say thank you.
Thank you for coming. I mean, it’s it’s such an incredible opportunity for our kids on the island. I’m I’m so blown away for that for them. But it’s been great to to meet you guys, get you introduced to our ministry. So thank you.
Thank you for being willing to take this time.
Micah Potter: Absolutely. So it’s honestly an answer to prayer for us, so we’re really thankful.
Gary Walton: Well, we’ll see. Maybe God will allow us to do this again.
Micah Potter: Yeah. It’ll be great. Mhmm.
Gary Walton: Alright. Thanks for for being here. Thanks for joining us on harvest time. Absolutely.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. Just one service in the summer, 10AM on Sunday. We have Japanese and Korean translation during that 10AM service, and that’s also the service we broadcast live here on eighty eight point one FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.