A REAL POTSHOT
Rhiannon Potkey has never been much of a shooter.
Opting instead for a no-look, behind-the-back zinger to a teammate, Potkey prefers to make the pretty pass.
Unless she’s far away from a gymnasium.
Then the weapon of choice for the Ventura High point guard is not a basketball, but a Rugar semi-automatic rifle. Or a 12-gauge shotgun.
Potkey loves to go target shooting or scouting for her father, Ed, when he hunts.
On May 2, when she turns 18 and can legally own a gun, Potkey gets dibs on a few of her father’s firearms, including a mini-14, a .22 and a 20-gauge shotgun.
She’s content to wait until then.
“I take pride in living up to the laws and am real strict [about shooting legally] because I want to be a fish and game warden,” Potkey said.
A what?
“People always look at me twice and ask why,” she said. “I just don’t want to be stuck behind a desk. I like open space. I want to live somewhere in the country. I want my neighbors to be pretty far away.”
She looks forward to sniffing out poachers and making sure the laws of the land are being upheld. A modern-day Annie Oakley, she just might be.
She does not have her hunting license yet because of the time commitment to basketball but, for now, is content to scout for her father, looking for tracks or other signs of deer, rabbit or quail.
Potkey, a senior, is applying only to colleges with a fish and game management program. She has been accepted to Humboldt State and is waiting to hear from UC Davis.
In the meantime, she’ll be target-shooting, scouting, fishing, hiking, camping and pursuing her newest interest, archery. What more could a college admissions office want on an application?
How about the wildlife enhancement projects Potkey and her father have taken up from time to time.
They travel to a wildlife environment hoping to locate a spring or comparable water source. Once that is accomplished, the water source is checked for proper flow and efficiency. Many times, there are problems.
Water pipes may be rusted or access to the spring may be blocked by debris or vegetation. In some cases, a spring may have been rerouted by the human hand to supply a herd of cattle or other personal livestock.
The bottom line calls for father and daughter to lift, pull, push, shovel and do whatever is necessary to restore the spring’s intended use.
It is easy to trace the roots of Potkey’s love for nature.
Her father was born in Drums, a small rural town in Pennsylvania. His nearest neighbor was more than a mile away.
Rhiannon, who was named after the Fleetwood Mac song, spent the first five years of her life in New Hampshire before moving with her family to Southern California when her father received a job transfer.
“It was quite a change, a dramatic change,” Ed Potkey said. “Sometimes we miss the change of seasons and everything, but now I don’t think we’ll ever leave.”
When Rhiannon isn’t holding a gun or a basketball, she can be found in the offices of The Cougar Press.
As sports editor and co-editor in chief of the student newspaper, which is published bi-monthly, Potkey helps lay out pages and writes articles.
She recently wrote an opinion piece scolding fans who fool around in the stands and don’t pay attention at football games.
“It’s real hard,” she said of her job. “Deadlines are hard and stressful. I go to practice and I’m worn out because I lay out [pages] all day.”
Sometimes, she has to write articles about herself.
“She’s very humble when it comes to that,” said Potkey’s mother, Linda. “I’m not even sure she enjoys seeing herself in the paper. She might enjoy it, but she never says it.”
Potkey definitely likes to pass.
She dished out 14 assists earlier this season against Alemany, one shy of the school record.
Last season, she was selected to The Times’ All-Ventura County team after averaging 8.2 points and 7.2 assists per game.
“I get more joy out of passing because I get someone else involved,” she said. “For some reason, I get more satisfaction out of that. If they need me to score, I try to do the best I can. But we have people who can score. I live with the fact that I pass.”
She also lives to shoot.
