Stacy Margolin Potter reached into the top ranks of pro tennis players during a golden age of women's tennis, along with Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Chrissie Evert, reaching #18 in ranking. She shares with "Ojai: Talk of the Town" her deep love of, and long history with, Ojai where she won seven titles at the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, the world's oldest amateur tennis tournament. She tells a fun story about getting food poisoning during the tournament and still drawing upon inner reserves of strength and determination to triumph.

Growing up in Beverly Hills as a member of a tennis-loving family, Stacy joined the boy's team in high school to sharpen her preternatural skill at the game, bruising many men's egos. From there, she went to USC, leading their squad to a national championship, and on to the pro tour. During her five-year relationship with John McEnroe, Stacy inadvertently was an participant in an international incident at Wimbledon, in which McEnroe, enraged at the impertinence of the English press asking about her whereabouts, started a punch-up between the American press and English press. Retiring at age 26 from the tour, she moved to Ojai after a romantic vacation with future husband Ian Potter, the adventure guide, with rock climbing  and bicycling and honky-tonking at The Wheel. Next visit they went to Landucci's restaurant at Wheeler Hot Springs, building a store of memories. She began working at the Oaks at Ojai with fitness pioneer Sheila Cluff and tennis coach Helen Allen, teaching their famous immersive "tennis week," which drew people from all over the country. The Potters now own Trails by Potter, leading people on bike rides, rock climbs and tennis lessons around Ojai, guiding people into our gorgeous country.

Stacy returned to college after retiring from the tour, first getting her master's degree at Pepperdine, then taking up a paid internship at a recovery center, learning about addiction. That in turn led her into a career dealing with eating disorders, teaching a program called "Eating and Exercise Counseling." That led her to Institute of Integrated Nutrition, an online platform to "look at the whole person," which became the basis of her new enterprise, balanced eating & lifestyle coaching, which puts all the elements of her life together. She learned about 101 diet plans, trying many herself as a guinea pig. We conclude with a talk about finding, and staying, on your healthy path, and how Ojai makes it much easier than many places. For Stacy, it's not about shaming yourself for bad choices, it's about making good choices and letting the healthy feelings crowd out the unhealthy ones.