Area girl debuts on national curling circuit

Published 9:46 am Thursday, October 2, 2008

Stephanie Potter is a fairly typical 13-year-old girl. She likes to hang out and talk with her friends, go to town and have fun and she loves to shop. Unlike a lot of teenage girls, though, Stephanie excels at the strange and mysterious sport of curling. Well, strange and mysterious to her friends, anyway.

“They’ve never heard of it,” Stephanie said. “I try to explain it to them, but they never understand when I explain it.”

They may have to learn quickly because Stephanie is becoming one of the best young curlers around.

Last week, Stephanie competed for the first time in the Junior U.S. Curling Nationals held Feb. 3-10 at Seattle’s Granite Curling Club. In an odd twist, she wasn’t representing her new home of Washington state, or her original home of Illinois, but instead filled in as an alternate on Utah’s women’s team. Stephanie moved to the Valley last July.

When Stephanie’s team finished second in the Washington state trials, she thought she’d miss out on nationals. Then word came that Utah was looking for an alternate and Stephanie’s coach, Murphy Tomlinson, passed her name along. Far from feeling strange playing for an unfamiliar team, Stephanie welcomed the opportunity. “She was excited to play,” said Claire Potter, Stephanie’s mother.

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