Packers Hall of Famer Leroy Butler preaches positivity

Former safety Leroy Butler shares powerful message of perseverance

By Mike Ramczyk

Sports Editor

Did you know the inventor of the Lambeau Leap was in a wheelchair as a young child?

Most Green Bay Packers fans know Leroy Butler as a Super Bowl champion, a Pro Bowl safety and one of the best NFL players of the 1990s.

However, Butler’s success didn’t come without hardship.

Raised in housing projects in a single-parent household in Jacksonville, Fla., Butler was bullied because of his severe club feet.

Butler shared his story in front of several hundred athletes and parents Sunday evening at Burlington High School, as part of the school’s summer sports meeting.

A nearly full parking lot meant a packed gym, and people were moved and taken aback at times by Butler’s struggles.

After needing braces on his feet and legs to correct his stature, Butler quickly fell in love with the game of football.

By the age of 8, he knew he wanted to be a professional football player, and he went on to star at Florida State University and for the Green Bay Packers, entering the Packer Hall of Fame in 2007.

After the speech, Butler was friendly in a black hat, black shirt and shorts with a line of around 100 fans, who were treated to free autographs.

Some wore Packers jerseys, some brought memorabilia and some bought jerseys, footballs, mini-helmets and more.

Sports Editor Mike Ramczyk interviewed Butler, who recently turned 47, after the autograph signing about his humble beginnings, his mom and seeing his old teammates at Brett Favre’s Hall of Fame induction.

MR: What brings you to Burlington?

LB: There’s a lot of connection with Nathan, a good friend of mine, he’s my media director. He’s brothers with the AD here (Eric Plitzuweit). We have a mentoring program and anti-bullying program, and we’re developing an anti-bullying app. It’s Leroy Butler, Inc. We rarely talk to schools in the summer. This was exclusive. We go to schools during the school year.

I’ll go to 74 schools in Wisconsin this year, and out-of-state colleges.

MR: What’s the message?

LB: The message is what I went through as a kid: growing up, single parent, African-American, living in the projects, having clubbed feet and I was able to make it. My mom gave me the message of being a leader, not a follower. I made my mind up at 8 years old I wanted to play professional football. If you have a goal and concentrate on it, you can do it.

MR: You were in a wheelchair?

LB: Yeah, I was 4 or 5. If you want to get anywhere fast enough, you have to be in a wheelchair. I was pigeon-toed, and now I call it clubbed feet. I grew out of it, though. There’s no cure for it, but at one point the doctors put my feet in casts. That’s what happened to my son at six weeks old. After six or seven weeks, his feet were fine. If you see a kid going through all of that to playing for the Packers, I think it’s a great story.

MR: What influenced you to want to be a pro football player?

LB: I knew it took teamwork to win games. There’s so many guys out there. I liked the fact that visually you have to let all of them come together for one collective goal. The challenge of getting these personalities to do that interested me as a kid. Football is the ultimate team sport.

MR: What made you mom so strong?

LB: She saw her kids in a situation where we were going to be different from other kids and we weren’t as fortunate. She was just smart. She had three jobs. She catched the bus and car-pooled and was a good person. She was my role model growing up, so it was easy for me to follow her lead.

MR: How many speeches have you done, and are they all the same?

LB: I’ve done over a couple hundred in two years. For third-graders, I cut out a lot. With this one, with high schoolers, it’s pivotal. Certain kids are stealing, drinking and smoking weed. If you’re doing it, you’re not cool. I try to tell them cool is not cool. What’s cool is being successful. There are enough knuckleheads in the world.

It is a little more an impactful and therapeutic speech for high schoolers. For younger kids, it’s fun and games and telling them the good things, not so much of the bad. I want to encourage them to lean on their parents as role models.

MR: It’s kind of like you’ll have plenty of time to do grown-up stuff when you’re a grown-up?

LB: No question. And that starts at the age of 18, when your parent slips a note under your door that says, ‘You’re out!’ (laughs jokingly) It’s a different message for college, too. It’s more about networking.

MR: How nice was it to see Brett Favre at his recent Packers Hall of Fame induction?

LB: He’s not like Jesus or nothing, he’s just Brett Favre (laughs). It’s been four or five years since I’ve seen him, and I haven’t seen some teammates in a decade.

The Packers Hall of Fame is very special. I made it in 2007. It’s something separate from the team. They’re going to do it again against Chicago Thanksgiving night.

MR: Were you surprised at all that it took seven years for Packers fans to welcome Favre back?

LB: No. Not at all. It was unprecedented. No player has ever split the fan base like that, gone to a rival team, and beat them. I was there in 2009 when Favre beat Green Bay with the Vikings. It was surreal. They gave Brett $20 million. For $20 million, I think most people would go play for anybody. It makes a big difference.

MR: What’s coming up for you?

LB: We won’t do any more schools until school starts. I’ll be playing in golf tournaments, including Thursday’s outing for Burlington High School. The school said they wanted me to come, and if it makes sense, it makes sense.