BUCYRUS (Crawford County Now) — The Bucyrus Redmen football team received an invitation to the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame game in Canton on July 31.
By accepting the invitation, the Hall of Fame informed head coach Jon Butchko that the team would receive a visit from a Hall of Fame member.
That visit came in the person of former Green Bay Packer and 2022 hall inductee LeRoy Butler on Friday.
Butler was the perfect choice for visiting the Redmen. The Bucyrus football team has fallen on hard times in recent years. Butler’s history of adversity in his early life and his advice for overcoming it was just what the doctor ordered for the Redmen, who are looking for better fortunes in the coming season.
Due to being born with club feet, Butler was not able to walk without braces until he was eight years old. Ironically, it was then that he decided he was going to play professional football.
“I had to figure out what I was good at,” Butler said. “Especially as kids, the ultimate team game is football. Ten guys help one guy to win. That’s how it works.”
Not only did Butler face physical restrictions, but he also grew up in poverty with his mother and siblings without his father. None of this seemed to portend an NFL future for a young man who grew to be 6 feet tall and weigh in at 204 pounds.
“I’m doing a documentary on my life story, and this producer goes, ‘Do you have any pictures or videos?’,” Butler said. “I said, ‘I’m in inner city Jacksonville, Florida. We did not have Polaroid. We did not have video. We didn’t even have cable TV. This is extreme poverty.’ You should have seen their faces.
“So, to make it out of there, it had to be something,” he added. “And it was my mother and my grandparents that really helped me.”
Butler was undeterred from his dream. He was named one of the top 33 players in the state of Florida at Robert E. Lee High School. That led to his being recruited by legendary Florida State University coach Bobby Bowden.
Having reached the major college football level, Butler had one more hurdle — he was academically ineligible to play his freshman year at FSU. He played safety in his sophomore and junior years and moved to cornerback his senior year to replace fellow hall of famer, Deion Sanders.
Butler was selected by the Packers in the second round of the 1990 NFL draft. He went on to play 181 games for Green Bay in his 12-year career from 1990-2001. Butler was selected All-Pro four times, played in four Pro Bowls, was named by the Pro Football Hall of Fame to the 1990s NFL All-Decade Team, and won a Super Bowl ring after the 1996 season.
Butler noted that they couldn’t have won that Super Bowl without other talented players such as Brett Favre, Reggie White and Donald Driver.
Overcoming his problems later in life was as difficult as managing his physical limitations early on.
“Thinking about trauma mentally, when they had Fathers’ Day and my father wasn’t there and I had to bring my uncle,” Butler said. “The next year, my uncle had to work. My coach had to stand in for me. The kids used to pick on me for it.”
Butler was undaunted.
“Nothing bothered me because I was going to make it. If I feel something negative, I just keep moving.”
The hall of famer gave much of the credit for his success to his teachers and coaches and encouraged the Bucyrus players to continue to listen to theirs and follow their instruction.
“My teachers, my coaches — I’m appreciative of all the things they’ve done for me,” Butler said. “They don’t do these things (primarily) for money, obviously. They do it for players like me to make it. That’s why in my Hall of Fame speech, I put two teachers in it.”
His message was summarized in his plea for the Redmen not to let negativity hinder them from reaching their goals.
“You hear a lot of negative stuff everywhere,” Butler noted. “I let them know, it’s not up to that person. It’s up to you.”
Coach Butchko expressed his appreciation for Butler’s visit.
“I am thankful for the relationship we are developing with the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Butchko said. “LeRoy Butler’s visit was awesome for our players to hear. His message was very much on point, and he seemed to really enjoy spending time in Bucyrus.”
Butler did, indeed, spend a couple of hours with the Bucyrus coaching staff at the Bratwurst Festival before meeting with the players later in the afternoon. Butler felt at home in that he has a stake in a bratwurst manufacturer.
“What I hope our athletes and community grow to appreciate is this type of thing doesn’t happen everywhere,” Butchko said. “We are getting a chance to be around some of the greatest to ever played this game. My hope is that our players start to capture some of the ‘magic’ I’d get to experience when NFL or Hall of Fame guys were around Canton when I was growing up.”