2012 Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Thermus Butler was a dynamic athlete who looked beyond the norm

Google the name Thermus Butler, and a few different accounts of the same moment appear.

Click on one of the search results, and you find that Butler, in his first year of varsity football at Kansas University, made a 38-yard field goal with less than two minutes to play to help his Jayhawks to a 3-3 tie against rival Kansas State on Oct. 29, 1966. Head coaches for both teams were fired after that season, and it seems that game and result sums up the struggles of both schools to field successful football programs.

Butler, who is part of the 2012 induction class of the Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame, always will be known for that game, and, in some ways, that game helps personify Butlers’ athletic life. He was a guy and a player who was better than the situation he was in and was looking for the positive.

“I’m the guy who made that field goal,” said Butler, 64. “Everyone wants to call that game, a fairly meaningless game, the ‘Thermus Butler Game’ just to give it a title. But I did my job. I helped us avoid a loss.”

Butler’s athletic career seemed to be about finding the best place to showcase his skills and doing whatever it took to help his team win games.

Butler was persuaded to play at Carver by his neighbor who just happened to be the principal at Columbus’ newest high school.

“He just kept telling me that I needed to come to Carver to help establish the sports programs,” Butler said. “So, after two years at Spencer, I made the move to the new place.”

At Carver, Butler played just about every sport, excelling in football (as a defensive back, defensive end, wide receiver, kicker and kick returner), basketball and track.

“He was a dynamic athlete,” Rudy Ingersoll, who coached Butler in football and basketball, said. “He was very coachable and was aware of being a member of the team. By that, I mean that he always kept morale high and helped make sure everyone practiced hard and played hard. He always had the best interest of the team on his mind.”

The best interest of the team seemed to coincide with Butler dominating on the field.

Butler scored all of his teams points, two touchdowns and two extra points in a game against South Fulton, and he scored four touchdowns, two on long receptions and two on returns of interceptions, against Appling.

“Those games stand out,” Butler said. “But all the games with Spencer stand out as well. I just remember the excitement around those games. And you have to remember, these were only the second and third years of that rivalry. It was early on, but it was still full of energy and special.”

It was after his junior season when Butler had almost given up on the idea of playing big-time college football. With little to no coverage in mainstream media, particularly newspapers, and no game film to speak of, it was word of mouth, and reputations of coaches that helped black players find scholarships from schools mainly in the Midwest and West Coast.

“My coach, coach Sanders, told me he would do whatever he could to help me get a scholarship,” Butler said. “I started getting offers from schools who never saw me play. It was all based on the letters that he would write. I got offers from as far away as Washington and Wisconsin. It never dawned on me that I could go to Auburn or Georgia. That wasn’t an option.”

Butler went on only one recruiting trip, and it was the first time he’d been on a plane.

“When I went to Kansas, that was it,” he said. “I was vaguely familiar with Kansas, but I knew who Gale Sayers was, and I knew who Wilt Chamberlain was. Plus, the facilities were great. Allen Fieldhouse was just about the most magnificent thing I had ever seen.”

Transferring to Carver had changed Butler’s life because he was able to play immediately, and now, because he’d made that bold move, he was getting chance to play big-time college, albeit outside of his comfort zone of the South.

“I watched these games on TV, and I saw Ernie Davis, who won the Heisman Trophy, and I saw Mike Garrett at USC, and I saw Sayers at Kansas,” Butler remembered. “I knew they were being successful at places, and I wanted to succeed as well. It wasn’t until I left Columbus that I realized what was going on.”

It was in the late summer of 1965 when Butler got on a bus from Columbus to Lawrence, Kan., that Butler got his first glimpse of how the world was changing.

“The bus stopped in Memphis, and this young, athletic black guy got on and told the driver he was going to Lawrence, Kansas. We started talking, and he was headed to play football for the Jayhawks, too,” Butler said. “Eventually, we realized that we had three guys in our class from Carver High Schools. It was this guy from Memphis, a guy from Amarillo, Texas, and me. That was the first time I realized how many guys from the South, black guys from the South, were leaving to play sports at these other schools.

“When I played opponents in college, the first thing I’d do is get a program, and I’d see where guys were from. I’d see they were from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas,” Butler said. “All of these great players were leaving the South to get a chance to play. It was the first time in my life that I had seen the opportunity out there, and it was the first time for a lot of guys.”

The move to Kansas was the opportunity, but it was Butler’s athletic ability, particularly his combination of size and speed that helped him stand out.

“He was big and fast,” said former Carver coach Wallace Davis, who was three years ahead of Butler in schools in Columbus and watched his career at Kansas. “Speed was the thing that Division I football programs were just discovering then, and he had speed and power. Boy, did he have speed.”

While at Kansas, Butler played in a system that used a committee of running backs, so his stats never were outstanding, but his ability was evident.

Butler married while at Kansas, a girl from back home, and she became pregnant.

After his junior year in Lawrence, Butler needed to make a living, and the only way at the time for him to do that while playing football was to go to Canada.

“To play in the NFL, you had to wait four years after you entered college. So guys would go play in Canada, and then go to the NFL after their contracts were up,” Butler said.

Butler again changed his location to help change his future. He and his wife headed for Edmonton, Alberta.

“I saw they were keeping three or four running backs, and I thought I could easily be among the three or four best,” Butler said. “But that’s when I realized just how many great athletes were out there. There were a lot of guys who were great athletes. In the end, it was my ability to do various things, especially kicking, that helped me make the team.”

Butler played three years in Canada and enjoyed the game and the culture.

“The CFL game is a lot of fun, and living in Canada, well, that was different than anything I’d experienced,” he said. “It was eye-opening, not from what I saw but from how the people in Canada wanted to know about the South. All they knew was what they saw on TV about the riots and things like that. I had to tell them that’s not what everyday life was like.”

He signed a contract for three years with the plan that, after his contract was over, he’d be able to come back to the United States and have a shot at playing in the NFL. But a knee injury, a torn ligament, in his final game in Edmonton changed the plan.

“I hurt my knee, and the doctor there, the team doctor, told me I need surgery,” Butler said. “So I stayed a couple of extra days and had the surgery. When I was ready to come back home, the team told me that one of the best knee surgeons in the world was in my hometown and I could rehab with him. If I’d known about Dr. Jack Hughston before I had the surgery, I probably would have waited to have him examine me.”

Butler rehabbed with Hughston in Columbus, using the steps in front of Columbus High School as one of his training facilities, throughout most of 1971.

Butler got a tryout with the Washington Redskins, coach George Allen’s “Over The Hill Gang,” in 1971, but nagging injuries hurt his chances.

He returned to play, thanks largely to his days in Canada, for the World Football League’s Birmingham American’s in 1974.

“Their coach, Jack Gotta, had been in the CFL as a head and assistant coach for a long time, and he remembered me,” Butler said. “Playing there was a lot of fun, and I, being a little bit older by this point, appreciated it a little more.”

Another knee injury and the league folding in 1975 put an end to Butler’s playing career.

He returned to Columbus, opened a few businesses, raised a family and kept an eye on the local sports scene for the next 30 years.

This induction, he said, is important for him but also for many of his teammates and contemporaries from the 1960s.

“I’m very excited about this -- it’s very humbling -- but I don’t think it’s just for me,” he said. “There were so many great athletes from Carver and Spencer from the 1960s that deserve the recognition, and I’ll be mentioning them at the ceremony. But I want to thank everyone who helped me along the way. I had to leave Columbus to get some opportunities, but I love Columbus. This is my town, and I love the progress we’ve made and I love the people here.”

And how about that Google search?

“There are worse things to be known for beside making a field goal to help your team,” Butler said. “But that’s not the only thing in my life that I’m proud of. I’ve had a pretty good ride and have a lot of people to thank for that.”

This story was originally published January 29, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "2012 Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Thermus Butler was a dynamic athlete who looked beyond the norm."