He played halfback on his high school football team in Columbia, Tennessee, when it won the state championship.

[1] Potts returned to Aberdeen Proving Ground as an instructor, and then as chief of the Mobility Training Department for the Ordnance School.

In 1967, by then a major, he was detailed to Monterey, California, to attend the Defense Language Institute as a student of Turkish in preparation for an assignment as the assistant military attache in that country.

Following a one year tour as Director of Readiness at the United StatesArmy Materiel Development and Readiness Command in Alexandria, Virginia, Potts received his second star, and in November, 1983, was named commanding general of the Army's Ordnance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

He was formally appointed to the reconstituted Office of Chief of Ordnance on October 28, 1985, the first to hold that proud and historic position in over twenty-three years.

The U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School systematically evaluated the performance of its graduates, and incorporated its findings in to the ongoing instructional program.

General Potts also succeeded in getting a single Ordnance Enlisted Assignment Branch established at the Military Personnel Center at the Pentagon.

Considerable emphasis was placed on standardization, both within Ordnance, in cooperation with other branches of the Army and other services, and to some extent in conjunction with other NATO forces, notably those of Great Britain and West Germany.