Things went as well as could be expected for Poolesville’s Paul Potemra in his freshman year at University of Maryland-Baltimore County. He made friends quickly. He earned a 3.3 grade-point-average. He played well enough in the spring to earn a starting slot on the men’s soccer team. The school was the right fit academically, athletically and socially.
So why is Potemra giving it all up to attend a school that most of his friends have never heard of, Bemidji State (Minn.)?
Because he’s a dreamer.
Potemra wants to play football. He wants to be a kicker. He wants to someday stand on a National Football League field, hear a blast of a referee’s whistle, and boom a kickoff through the end zone.
“A lot of soccer players from UMBC go to the next level. But the next level is the Baltimore Blast. I don’t want that,” said Potemra. “I want to play professional football. It’s the American sport. It’s what everybody goes crazy about.”
So instead of playing Division I soccer at a school an hour away, Potemra will travel 22 hours to Northern Minnesota to take a shot at Division II football. Bemidji is a strong program, ranked No. 13 in the preseason (Lindy’s), and the defending champion in the Sun Intercollegiate Conference.
At the Bullis School in Potomac, Potemra played football and soccer simultaneously in the fall. In his senior year, Potemra was All-Examiner in both sports. But despite kicking 10 field goals (including a 53-yarder and three others longer than 45 yards), punting for a 40-yard average and making all-state, Potemra received little interest.
He visited Cincinnati and was contacted by Maryland. But both preferred him to walk-on. So Potemra accepted a partial scholarship to play soccer at UMBC.
He was prepared to return this fall. But during a workout last month at Bullis, varsity football coach Aaron Brady asked Potemra if he was still interested in kicking. It didn’t take Potemra long to accept to Bemidji’s partial scholarship offer.
“Once they see what I can do, I think it will take one semester to get on full scholarship,” said Potemra. “I’m excited. I want to make a living at it. But the real goal is to give myself a shot at it — to give it everything I could and then I’ll know the answer.”
