Adam Hunsucker

ahunsucker@thenewsstar.com

The limelight Roosevelt Potts thrived in as a bruising runner at ULM wasn’t quite as bright in the NFL.

That’s what happens when you switch positions from tailback to fullback.

Most of Potts’ highlights in his six-year with the Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens involved laying waste to linebackers with devastating blocks instead of carrying the football.

Hits of that magnitude can still leave an impression. That was certainly the case with the Colts, who honored Potts as a Horseshoe Legend prior to last Sunday’s season finale with the Tennessee Titans.

Potts spent the formative years of his professional career with the Colts from 1993-97, where he played lead blocker for NFL Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk.

“Meeting Marshall was the first time I saw somebody that I knew was better than me,” Potts said. “I actually asked for a trade because I wasn’t about to play fullback but the Colts wouldn’t budge so I had to swallow my pride a little bit.

“Now 20 years later, I can look back and see how great a lesson that was to learn and this award is a reminder of that.”

While the ranks of pro football know him as a blocker, northeastern Louisiana remembers Potts best as the diesel engine of some of the most talented teams ULM has ever put on the field. He ended his All-American career with back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons and graduated as the program’s all-time leading rusher.

In Potts’ last year at then-Northeast Louisiana University in 1992, the Indians won 10 games and the Southland Conference while producing nine total All-Americans and four NFL Draft picks.

“Potts was like (running back) Eddie Lacey was at Alabama. He’d carry it 40 times a game if you’d let him,” said Dave Roberts, ULM’s football coach from 1989-93.

“As a coach, it’s always good when your best player is your hardest worker, especially because I practiced the hell out of those kids back then. When the other guys saw that he came to work every day and kept his mouth shut, it was hard for them not to do the same.”

Potts still jokes that he “was never supposed to go to ULM,” but an aggravated assault charge from his junior year at Rayville High School caused bigger schools like LSU to back away from recruiting him.

He ended up signing with ULM over Ole Miss, which led former Rebels coach Billy Brewer to accuse Roberts of various recruiting improprieties.

Roberts was called to task by other coaches, fans and various members of the ULM community alike for signing Potts, but the coach knew something they didn’t. They never saw the side of Potts that cared for Ilean Andrews, a former school teacher and the wife of Rayville football coach Dan Andrews, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair.

Potts lived with the Andrews family and they later became his guardians while he was in high school.

“Those folks never saw him carry her to her seat at church and all the other things he did,” Roberts said. “What he did for them and what they did for him in return was a great thing.”

The Colts selected Potts in the second round of the NFL Draft in 1993. Potts credits Roberts and former ULM assistant coach Tag Rome for teaching him the business of football, lessons that became invaluable after his playing days were over.

After one final NFL with the Ravens in 1998 and a stint as part of the Memphis Maniax in the short-lived XFL, Potts found a new career as an administrator and assistant football coach at Anderson University (Division III) and Taylor University (NAIA) — both in Indiana.

Potts remains in Indianapolis today, where he does public relations for the Colts and mentors his son, R.J., a four-star safety prospect at Fishers High School.

“I never will forget Tag telling me that football was going to be my job and he shouldn’t have to motivate me to take care of my family — he was right,” Potts said.

“I took that and learned it a little bit more in the NFL and now that’s something I can pass along to not just my kids in whatever career they decide to pursue but others here in Indianapolis.”

Follow Adam on Twitter @adam_hunsucker