Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991 TAG: 9102110200
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE SEE WHITE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The odds were badly stacked. Potter's parents divorced and left town. His grandmother, a practical nurse, raised him as a latchkey kid in Roanoke's tough West End section, near Campbell and 10th.
During his grade-school years, Potter took to hanging out on the street with hoods who wore black leather jackets and carried rabbits' feet.
Potter managed to stay out of serious trouble, but in high school he wasn't much of a student. And, counting time out to earn tuition, it took him more than six years to get his college degree.
Yet, at 41, the former West End tough-in-the-making holds the U.S. Chess Federation rank of Life Master. He is among the top 350 chess players in the nation.
That's the 99th percentile.
And that's some statistic.
On a Friday night, members of the Roanoke Valley Chess Club gather at the Grandin Recreation Center for a review - led by Potter, their president - of the championship match that ended in January between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, which Kasparov won by a hair.
Sound pretty dry? Wrong: The room resounds with laughter.
The reason is that Rusty Potter is positively antic about chess. He tosses off one-liners. He waves his arms. He runs his hands through his gray-speckled sandy hair and widens his blue eyes in mock horror as he describes an audacious move.
Of Karpov, Potter notes: "There's no truth to the rumor that he only washes his hair when he loses."
Of Kasparov: "Some say he will endorse anything." Pause. " `The Garry Kasparov Chess Rock.' "
After reviewing high points, from memory, of every world championship match since 1946, Potter sets the scene for the Kasparov-Karpov face-off:
"Kasparov is younger, more athletic. He has more stamina. By now Karpov looked like the night of the living dead. . . . Karpov holds onto a pawn unto the death. He's very materialistic. . . . Kasparov, on the other hand, will sacrifice. He once sacrificed his queen!"
Potter lowers his voice into a nonchalant mock-Russian rumble, " `No problem: Let's try this!' "
A pawn to his passion
Chess has been Rusty Potter's anchor since the late Bristow Hardin, then principal of West End Elementary, introduced him to the game 30 years ago.
"Chess probably helped me stay off the streets," he acknowledges.
Within a few years, Potter was the sixth-ranked 14-year-old player in the nation. ("My peak," he says.)
But he wasn't much of a student. In the 11th grade, Potter's father sent him to military school, hoping he would buckle down.
"I did pull my grades up," he says, "but the best thing was that during all those tedious hours they made us stand in line, I learned how to play blind chess in my head. First six moves, then 15, eventually a game."
His college career was itinerant: two years at Virginia Western, one at a college near his father's home in Louisiana, one at Parson's College in Iowa, two years off to earn tuition and then another half year, leading up to a bachelor's in government, at Parson's. Back home in Roanoke, Potter went to work for TAP and then, until 1982, the now-defunct Neighborhood Alliance.
Meanwhile, Potter was playing competitive chess and teaching on the side. In 1973, he achieved National Master rank. He made Life Master in 1988. Now he's working toward the only rank still to be scaled, Senior Master.
In 1982, Potter became coach of the Pulaski Scholastic Chess Team. They were already good, he says. But during five years under Potter, they took firsts in the national championships five times.
In 1986, Potter took a job as consultant to the Roanoke City Schools' chess program. By the time he left in 1989, he says, more than 450 kids from 22 schools were playing serious, rated chess.
Now Rusty Potter is piecing together a livelihood as a free-lance chess teacher. "It's rough. Sometimes things get slow and it's real rough," he says.
Potter works out of his apartment in a house off Brambleton Avenue. He isn't much of a housekeeper: The living room is dark, dusty, cluttered with files, books, chess pamphlets, a table, a couple of straight-backed chairs and a sway-backed sofa hidden under still more layers of paper.
But his office is orderly indeed. There are four five-foot file cabinets stuffed with files holding hundreds of strategic combinations of chess moves, with packages of lesson plans, with files on each of his students and more.
The brick-and-board shelves lining the wall contain, among other things, scores of chess books and loose-leaf binders in which Potter has filed move-by-move descriptions of every significant chess game he's played.
"But, listen, I am not a monomaniac," Potter protests. "I like to walk, swim, read. I take a civic interest in peace issues. I'm concerned about social justice. I like good food, good coffee" - he's laughing now - "quality ice cream . . . "
Potter teaches chess for Roanoke County's Department of Parks and Recreation, for Dublin and Stewartsville Elementary schools and Claremont Elementary School in Pulaski. He also teaches by mail and tutors private students.
One of these is Ted Edlich, executive director of TAP, who's worked with Potter since 1986 and describes him as "a sensational teacher. It's like studying under a Ph.D., a very fine Ph.D., in the field of your interest."
In his element
For the kids at W.E. Cundiff Elementary School one recent afternoon, facing off with the master is undiluted fun.
In an after-school marathon offered by the County recreation department, Potter takes on 26 two- or three-person teams of 6-to-10-year-old chess players. All at once.
"For elementary kids, chess is great. They can play freely without fear of injury. Overweight and asthmatic kids get the pleasure of competing. Upper body strength is irrelevant, so little girls can be stars, too," Potter says.
And, he adds, quoting a button he often wears on his necktie, "Chess makes you smart" - it helps teach logical thinking.
By his own reckoning, Potter's taught chess to 300 kindergarten-age children in the last three years alone. He sheds his dignity when teaching, pretending to be the fat, lazy king (who thus moves only one step at a time) or "Wonder Woman," the powerful queen (who can move any number of squares in any direction).
At Cundiff, the children know the game. But Potter tutors as needed while moving quickly from board to board, playing the black.
"No, honey," he says, moving a girl's pawn diagonally back to the spot where it started, "the pawn captures crooked but moves straight."
"We got you! We got you!" three little boys cry as Potter reaches them. Potter moves his knight, says, "Check," and moves on.
Next time around, the boys chorus "Ha-ha-ha-ha-HA-ha" as they move out of check. Again they think they've got him. Potter pauses, gazing at the board. "Very clever," he remarks. "These guys are tricky."
As Potter eliminates teams, some children begin new games with each other. Others search for a team still in the competition that will let them join.
Near the end, three three-person teams remain, and 15 children are crowded behind them, shouting advice or just watching.
Ninety minutes after it begins, the 26-game marathon is over.
Winner? The master.
Who else?
by CNB