Potential Players/L.I.F.E. Training Director, Brian Butler has been under fire from some very heavy hitters lately (N.Y. Times and ESPNU just to name a few). He has also been criticized by some not so heavy hitters (Wichita East High Football Coach- Brian Byers, particularly). Byers who inherited the top two players in the country(Arthur Brown Jr. and Bryce Brown) when he took over the job in the spring of 2007.
At that time Arthur Brown's recruiting was in full swing; partly due to Butler's Potential Players organization, which had made phone calls and sent out highlight videos (on both Brown Brother's) to all the top schools and recruiting websites in the country. There were a slew of coaches coming to town to see the Brown Brothers, and Butler was their contact. He escorted coaches to see the Brown's and used them as bait(which the Brown's knew about) to get some of the area's other top talent noticed(including Chris Harper-Oregon, Jaydan Bird-OU, Huldon Tharp-KU and Blaize Foltz-TCU). Also, in the spring of 2007 Butler had set up a camp that would feature over 80 of the state's top players, and in attendance where some of the nations top coaches (Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, Mark Mangino, Dan Hawkins and others).
At that time, Coach Brian Byers had just been let go from the Wichita Northwest coaching staff where he was an assistant coach. And with no recommendation from Northwest head coach, Byers still got the head coaching job at Wichita East; which most believed was due to his affiliation and friendship with the East High Athletic Director. The perception has been made that Butler didn't involve Byers in the Brown's recruiting, but Butler says, “Whenever college coaches would come into Wichita to see the Brown’s I made it a point to put them in contact with Coach Byers (who was still teaching in the building at Wichita Northwest High School). Arthur Brown Sr. and I met with Coach Byers when he got the job. We educated him on the whole Potential Players program and let him know of all dates and times of workouts and camps that the boys would be attending that spring and summer. We also invited him to attend any and all events with us, which he declined". Mr. Arthur Brown Sr. adds, "We asked Coach Byers if there was anything that he had planned or scheduled for them to let us know and we would work around his schedule. This also included their summer weights program. Coach Byers said that he was very supportive of what we were doing and when we gave him the scheduled workouts and activities that the Brown's would be participating in, he agreed that they were being prepared properly and felt that some of the other players on the team could benefit from the "Potential Players" program as well." The interesting thing about this was that Butler was using the East High practice fields to train during that spring and summer and Byers even mentioned having his son involved in the group. "My camp was even held at East High", Butler said.
During the summer of 2007 Butler brokered a deal with ESPN to have them televise the Dodge City vs. Wichita East high school football game. "I wasn't even offered a ticket to get into the game by anyone from Wichita East. So who's using who." The game was a success and brought some great exposure to the entire Midwest. Here is one of the reflections that the 2009 Player of the Year, Bryce Brown remembers about the ESPN game experience. "ESPN provided enough Gatorade for both teams to have during the game. We drank water while Dodge City players drank Gatorade. Our coaches brought the Gatorade packets back to their office and were drinking Gatorade at practice everyday until it was gone. The players received none". "I remember Bryce giving me a Gatorade towel, just to say thank you. He and Arthur were the only people from Wichita East to show any appreciation or gratitude for the efforts that I put into making the game happen. I didn't even receive a thank you from any Wichita East administration or football coach."
Butler went along with business as usual and didn’t let the negativity phase him, his Potential Players foundation continued to grow along with the Browns’ and other players success on and off the field. Butler decided at that time to take a substantial pay cut and left his job at T-Mobile to start L.I.F.E. Training LLC. “The reason I did this was so I could help more kids. I was working over 50 hours a week and didn’t have the time to add additional training groups, so I made the sacrifice to do so. Butler charges $18/session for training and splits that with Pure-Formance training facility where he holds his strength training. The average charge for general personal training at the Y.M.C.A. is $25/session and Butler says that he knows independent trainers who charge up to $500/session. This seems very inexpensive for a man who was just called “Maybe the best-known recruiting figure in the country right now” by CBS Sportsline.com. “My goal was never to get rich financially off of training kids, but if it happened that way so be it, but that would take a whole lot of training”. Butler describes two ways of making money, 1.”To charge a low price and help many or 2.To charge a high price and help a few. I chose to attempt to help as many kids as possible.”
The reason he uses the word “attempt” is mostly due to the location of the athletes that he trains. “I only train 1 person that is from the U.S.D. 259 Wichita Public School system, and that person is Bryce Brown”. This seems amazing once you find out that this is the biggest public school system in the State of Kansas. “Up unto this point, Brian is having the success that he is having with mostly kids from the suburbs. That’s amazing to me,” said a former Wichita City League player. Blaize Foltz signed with T.C.U. and was the 1st player ever to sign to a Division I school from the small community of Rose Hill, KS. Huldon Tharp signed with KU and was the 1st player ever to sign to a DI school from Mulvane, KS. Riley Spencer signed with KU and was the 1st player to ever sign to a DI school from Hesston, KS. Sounds pretty amazing to me, especially when I realized that he was only talking about the last 2 years of recruiting, and those are just a few of the athletes that Butler has helped recently.
Butler says one of his objectives is to help all the parents and kids of the Wichita Public School system to understand recruiting, and educate them on what it takes for student-athletes to reach their goals of playing college athletics. He says he has gone to numerous high schools in the city just to talk to coaches and let them know what his program is about. "I can reach out to people, but I can’t control who reaches back". There have been some high school coaches to welcome Butler in, but he hopes to see more positive feedback from the school system that he attended from elementary through high school. It’s sad to say, but in the class of 2009 the only player that will sign a letter of intent to play college football at the D-I or D-II level is Bryce Brown. There are 7 schools in the Wichita School District, from those 7 teams 37 players signed to play at a in state Junior College program. “The tree should be judged by the fruit that it produces and when it comes to DI players coming directly out of high school, the tree is bare.
As for Byers, he believes that Butler is the biggest reason for their 6-3 season(speaking of the 3 losses). Here is an excerpt from the recent N.Y. Times article. Byers, who has coached football for 30 years, described Butler’s philosophy this way: “It’s all about me, me, me. That’s not what football is about. We’re a proven fact. We had supposedly the best football player in the country in high school, and we went 6-3. We didn’t have a team because of that.” Butler understands that Byers words could have been taken in the wrong way, as he says some of his own where in the New York Times article, he hopes this was the case when Byers made his comments. If not though, butler says that Byers doesn’t have to worry about using him as a scapegoat in the future, because he doesn’t train any players that are on the East High Team (which includes his nephew-who is currently suspended from Butler’s, Potential Players program for personal issues and grades). “Maybe they will have a better season next year, because they do have some very talented players coming back. Before Arthur and Bryce showed up to East they had lost like 19 games in a row or something like that. Arthur’s freshmen year they only won 1 game.” Butler says his goal from this story is for people to know some of the things that transpired between him and Coach Byers during this 5 year journey with the Brown Brothers. “He has recently had a pretty strong opinion about me lately, and I wanted people to know the facts. Two parents of junior high age kids in my program came to me after the NY Times story was written, and said that they were so surprised about what Coach Byers had said, because they had previously asked me about my thoughts on different high school programs; and I always told them that if my son were in high school in Wichita that I would send him to Wichita East. “I would have to seriously rethink that one now,” Butler said laughing.
It's no laughing matter now. Kansas is becoming a place where college coaches can expect to come find some diamonds in the rough. Brian Butler told me that there are many more DI athletes to come.
To Be Continued….