Sports Radio Interviews

Former Florida State and Green Bay Standout Leroy Butler On Bobby Bowden

Former Florida State Seminoles and Green Bay Packers CB Leroy Butler isn’t scared to step up to the mic to talk about the sad state of his alma mater under the direction of septuagenarian Bobby Bowden. Just last week, the program was handed down sanctions by the NCAA stating they would vacate an undetermined number of wins, serve four years probation, and face a reduction in scholarships in the wake of a major academic cheating scandal that included 61 FSU student-athletes in ten different men’s and women’s varsity sports.

Butler joined WSSP in Milwaukee to talk about his old coach, and whether or not he thinks he’s tarnishing his legacy or not. In short? Butler is embarrassed like most, but can never remove the huge place he has in his heart for the football coach that showed him a way out from his rough and tumble roots in the projects of West Jacksonville. Being that most conversations about Bobby Bowden include a mention of Joe Paterno and vice versa, the discussion also turns briefly to the disrepair of the institutional control of the Nittany Lions football program. According to an ESPN investigation cited in the segment, 46 PSU players were charged with 163 criminal counts between 2002 and 2008.

Butler first talks about whether he thinks Bowden is responsible for the dark shadow beginning to be cast on his career:

“I agree with a lot of that, but if you’re going to set a standard with two untouchable guys, then it has to be a standard for all coaches. Because I’m telling you, there’s some stuff out there that they haven’t uncovered yet that a lot of these universities do. They text message each other, they email each other, answer to texts. It’s pretty bad out there now. So, if they’re going to do that, you know, take wins away from Coach Bowden, or whatever they hand down, I’m ok with it. Because’ it’s embarrassing to be a part of something. How can I look my four girls in the face and say I attended Florida State. They’ll come back, because my girls? They don’t play. They’ll go Google and say, why did you tell me to go here when there’s a scandal like this? “

Then, Butler says no matter what the mishaps have been of late, Coach Bowden saved his life, and others like him who needed desperately for someone to give them a chance:

“I’m from the inner-city, one of the worst projects in the world. I had a guy who came down and believed in me, Coach Bobby Bowden. Now I admit to the listeners that I passed my core classes but I didn’t pass the SAT test. So the first year I couldn’t play. He could have pulled back. The NCAA gave him 6 scholarships real quick and he gave me one of those six.

All the letters I got from Notre Dame, USC, Tennessee, the coaches saying ‘oh we don’t want to be dealing with you.’ This guy came into the projects and pulled me out of one of the worst cesspools ever. Not just me, he did it for a lot of guys. He went in there. He could have left me for dead as a statistic.”

Will Bowden excuse himself from his job in the future or will things come to an embarrassing end in Tallahassee?

Listen here to Butler on WSSP in Milwaukee

Tags: Bobby Bowden, College Football, Florida State Seminoles football, Green Bay Packers, Leroy Butler, Penn State Nittany Lions, sports interviews, WSSP