Poor Scarlett.
She emerged from the school bus that chilly, gray fall afternoon, appearing quite distraught. The 7-year-old was, in fact, in tears.
“What’s the matter, honey?” her mother asked.
“The boys on the bus were teasing me about Daddy and the Bears,” Scarlett replied.
And she fought back more tears.
Such is the life of the Kevin Butler family every football season. Some days, life is a real kick. Other days, life kicks you back.
“Kids talk and they hear what other people say,” says Cathy Butler, wife of the Bears’ kicker and all-time leading scorer. “We have to take the good with the bad. There have been a lot of heartbreaking moments. And there have been a lot of high times. We have experienced every emotion imaginable. It has been stressful, nerve-wracking. At times we feel so lucky; then you wonder if you can even take it anymore.”
Scarlett’s older brother, 11-year-old Drew, gives his little sister advice about dealing with those taunting boys. “Don’t listen to them, Scarlett,” Drew says. “We know that Daddy is the best.”
Being the best is a week-to-week proposition for Butler, who must prove himself to a demanding coaching staff, a scrutinizing media and an unforgiving public every time he lines up for a field goal or extra point. Most important, Butler must measure up to the exceedingly high standards he has created for himself.
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With his tie draped around the neck of a soaking wet dress shirt, Butler stands in front of his cubicle in the corner of the steamy Soldier Field bathhouse on a hot late summer night, answering reporters’ questions about a missed field goal.
A potential game-winning kick hooked wide left from 37 yards out and the Bears dropped a preseason encounter to the Arizona Cardinals at Soldier Field.
“I didn’t hit it well. The ball usually travels end-over-end and this one rotated laterally. I just missed it,” Butler says with deepest apology.
When a writer suggests that the ball placement may have been less than perfect, Butler ignores the opportunity to cop an excuse and simply says: “I’ve got to go back and work harder. I have to look at the film and see where the timing broke down. There is no reason we should be missing kicks like this.”
Two weeks earlier, Butler had stood in front of the same locker to explain how his 51-yard field goal beat the expansion Carolina Panthers 18-15 in the preseason opener.
While critics often dwell on the few crucial kicks that have gone awry in Butler’s career, the fact is he has kicked 13 game-winners in the final minutes or seconds of a game.
His 52-yarder that beat the Packers 26-24 at Lambeau Field on Nov. 8, 1987, sticks out in Butler’s resume. It was a long kick in an important division game.
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During the season, a typical work week for Butler includes plenty of stretching, weight training, running and exercises to strengthen his legs. The sturdiness of his left, plant leg is just as important as the pendulum effect created by his right, kicking leg.
Over the years, Butler has not hesitated to make a tackle on a kickoff, and it has taken its toll. He has suffered hip, shoulder and foot injuries while trying to make a tackle.
He once kicked off left-footed against the Vikings because of an injury. (And he got in some trouble with Coach Mike Ditka because of it. Butler recalls that the coach told him that even though he was in pain, he shouldn’t kick left-footed. But because Butler had played soccer, he was confident that he could do it. He kicked the ball to the 3-yard line. Ditka yelled at him anyway.)
Ditka and Butler survived that kick and others, losing and winning, to Super Bowl XX and beyond. Ditka lost his job with the Bears in 1993; Butler’s still kicking for the team. But now Todd Sauerbrun, a rookie, handles most of the Bears’ kickoffs, allowing Butler to concentrate on placements.
During the week before a home game, Butler usually heads over to Soldier Field on Thursday before a Sunday game to kick and re-acquaint himself with the nuances of the stadium while his teammates remain back in Lake Forest to practice behind Halas Hall.
Sometimes before a Monday night game, the team will practice at Soldier Field. Or if the Bears are playing out of town, they might do a walk-through at the game site.
By the end of the week, Butler must rejoin his teammates and perform in front of the Bears’ coaching staff, including special teams coach Danny Abramowicz.
Timing is essential for the success of an extra point or field goal.The goal is to get the ball snapped from the center to the holder 7 or 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage, ball held in place and kicked in under three seconds; any longer and the opposing team’s defenders are likely to block the kick.
For that reason, Butler works with a center and holder as often as he can. Jay Leeuwenburg and Jerry Fontenot alternate practice snaps. Tight end Chris Gedney is the holder this season.
Butler wants his holder to place the football on the ground with the thick laces pointing toward the goal posts to insure maximum opportunity to send the ball spinning end over end through its target. If the laces face right or left, the extra weight to that side tends to cause the ball to veer in that direction. If the laces face the kicker’s foot, he can’t get as much foot into the ball as when the flat side of the ball faces him. This is most important on long field-goal attempts, not so much on extra points and short kicks. Unpredictable wind direction and the frozen surface at Soldier Field many game days add to the difficulty there. Kickers prefer indoor stadiums and artificial turf.
Over the years with the Bears, Butler has had 14 different holders. This season, for the first time, he was not able to choose his holder; coach Dave Wannstedt finally agreed on Gedney.
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Kicking in cold, windy Soldier Field in November and December is not an ideal situation. When he is standing along the sideline, waiting for his number to be called to attempt a kick, Butler often will wear an over-sized boot over his right foot to insulate it from the bad weather.
Like a professional golfer, Butler tries to visualize a successful kick before he enters a game. In his mind, in his sleep, Butler sees the ball creasing the uprights, just as he has seen it hundreds of times in practice.
During warmups before a game, Butler communicates with coaches, letting them know how far he can kick a field goal, given the existing wind and field conditions.
“I’ve been there sometimes when 37 yards is as far as I can go ,” Butler said. “It has nothing to do with my leg strength.” (His range in a domed indoor stadium is about 55 yards, he said.)
Butler will kick long when he thinks it’s possible. He talked Wannstedt into letting him attempt a 52-yarder against the Cardinals in the third quarter last season.
“He just asked me and I kept saying, ‘Yeah,”‘ said Butler. “You don’t want to have any cracks in your voice or hesitation, or he won’t let you out there.” (The kick was good.)
As he grows older, Butler has learned to spend less time in practice actually kicking the football. It is quality, not quantity, that counts. He concentrates in practice on using proper technique on fewer kicks, looks at films of himself kicking and makes corrections where necessary.
Butler, 33, in his 11th professional season, is the oldest member of Wannstedt’s youthful Bears team.
The stocky soccer-style kicker is the only remaining Bear from the Super Bowl XX championship team that routed the New England Patriots 46-10 in New Orleans on Jan. 25, 1986. Butler contributed to the winning score with 14 points.
“In a way I am surprised I have played for just one team all of these years because of the way that the league has changed lately . . . what with the free agency market and the way a team can go out and get other kickers and other position players,” says Butler. “But I have produced here. I have had my ups and downs like anybody in any career. But it is the way you come back after a down period. I have been very fortunate to have teams around me that have been able to pick me up when I have been down, and vice versa.”
Almost anyone would love the opportunity to be paid about $500,000 a year to kick a football, but few have the ability, fortitude or consistency Butler has demonstrated. He entered this season with 1,002 points, seventh among active NFL players and 22nd in league history.
Born in Savannah, Ga., and raised in Atlanta, Butler busied himself as a youth with soccer, wrestling, baseball and football. Eventually he quit baseball and wrestling.
“We told him he had to narrow his sports down to two,” said Butler’s father, Joe, a 56-year-old real estate salesman and former high school halfback. “Kevin had a gift-and we knew he had a gift-kicking the football. We didn’t push him into anything.”
When he was a 12-year-old playing on the Little League Pop Warner team, Butler kicked a 43-yard field goal.
“That’s when I knew he had something special,” said Joe Butler, whose eldest son, Shawn, also starred in high school football and soccer.
Butler went on to become an all-state defensive back and quarterback in high school who also kicked six field goals over 50 yards. Strong recruiting bids came from Auburn, Duke and Georgia. Duke wanted Butler to play defensive back and kick. Georgia coach Vince Dooley said the kicking job was Butler’s to win, and that is where he wound up.
A consensus All-American at Georgia his final two seasons, Butler made 77 of 98 field goals, including 23 of 28 as a senior. His most dramatic kick was a 60-yarder that beat Clemson in 1984 in the closing seconds.
“I am surprised I am in pro football, because I can remember as a kid coming out to watch the Atlanta Falcons practice and what it meant to me,” said Butler.
“It is kind of a dream come true. When you are a kicker in the NFL and you are successful, it’s all the limelight and the glamor and the challenge and competition you could want without the physical abuse.”
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As a fourth-round draft pick of the Bears in 1985, Butler immediately won the kicking job and went along for the ride to the Super Bowl title. He broke Gale Sayers’ NFL rookie scoring record of 132 points with 144 points on 31 field goals and 51 straight extra points.
“Ever since high school, ever since Little League, I have always been around winners. We won Little League championships, we won state championships, we won college championships; and even with the Bears we won championships.
“Being around those people and believing I am one of those people, even though I am a kicker, helps me maintain my focus and enables me to stick around,” he said.
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Winning the heart of Cathy Clement, also of Atlanta, began for Kevin Butler at the University of Georgia in 1981. She was a sophomore cheerleader and he was one of the freshmen hotshots on the Bulldogs football team.
Kevin and Cathy became engaged at the end of his senior year at Georgia and they set a wedding date of Jan. 25, 1986. But after attending his first Bears minicamp session the spring of 1985, Butler returned to Georgia and promptly told his fiance: “Cathy, we are going to have to change our wedding date.”
Cathy replied: “Kevin, you have just been with your new teammates a week and you don’t even know if you are going to make the team yet. Why do we have to change our wedding date?”
“Because,” Kevin replied, “we are going to the Super Bowl on that day.”
To be sure, the Bears did advance to Super Bowl XX on Jan. 25, 1986. Kevin and Cathy were married on Feb. 5, 1986.
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Butler credits his wife with keeping his life in perspective.
“My wife and my family keep it all in focus. I need them to keep it all in focus because you can get so engulfed in what is going on in this game. You bring moods home.
“My are more mental than physical. Cathy sure realizes it, because she has talked to the other players’ wives about how their husbands couldn’t even get out of bed after a game. Meanwhile, I am probably on the turn of the front nine or something.”
While Bears fans go home or to a neighborhood bar cursing a crucial missed field goal, Butler agonizes even more.
“It is almost like a depression sets in, because I don’t talk about it too much to anybody,” Butler said. “It is the way that I have always dealt with it. It is my responsibility, and when things don’t go right, I have always been the toughest person on myself. For Cathy to maybe get me in the right frame of mind and the kids . . . they will tell me the truth. They will say: ‘It was a bad kick’ or ‘a good kick’ and then they will want me to be ‘Dad.’ They don’t care about me being a football player.”
Joe Butler said his son always was moody after a poor performance, even as a youngster. “He is a perfectionist when it comes to sports. He felt he should not miss a field goal when he went on the field. I feel sorry for my daughter-in-law. Cathy has to live with him now. And she is probably the best thing that ever happened to him,” he said. Kevin agrees.
“The last four years, that is probably what has helped me become a better kicker. I am kicking now for five people, instead of just myself when I first came into the league. My focus is probably greater now because of my children and my wife and the responsibilities I have to them.”
Cathy Butler wishes her husband would not torture himself so much after a poor game.
“He listens to what the fans say. He reads every article and listens to every radio show. Good or bad. I tell him he shouldn’t do that. But I think it motivates him. For some reason, he listens intently.”
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Although he has never minded mixing it up by making a tackle on a kickoff return, Butler does not don forearm pads or other forms of protection. But like other members of the Bears, he does put on his game face .
“I have a lot of things going on in my life, but when football comes, that is what I have to be involved in. I stay active and do a lot of things in the off-season with business and the family and all of that.” The father of three, Butler has been a major contributor to the American Heart Association. An avid golfer, Butler has worked for Prestwick Partners during the off-seasons, developing the finances and assisting in the management of golf courses. One of his business partners is a friend, Brian Mahoney.
“But when football comes, mentally I have to be on. My timing has to be down. Working with new holders and snappers, this a very serious time for me. I have to watch game films, even for a kicker. There is nothing more boring than films.
“When you start pressing as a kicker, it gets tough. There are too many kickers out there at the door waiting to come in if you miss a few.”
Butler was involved in several celebrated on-field squabbles with former coach Ditka, who called him “gutless” following a poor kickoff at Tampa Bay in 1992. Butler went on to miss a potential game-tying 44-yard attempt at the end of that same game and later cited Ditka’s verbal abuse as a distraction.
Nowadays, Ditka has mellowed a bit and speaks glowingly of Butler.
“I liked him overall as a kicker and I liked him as a person,” says Ditka, who works as an NFL analyst for NBC-TV and WSCR-AM radio in Chicago. “His kickoffs aren’t as strong as they used to be. But he still is consistent and reliable as a field goal kicker. He’s the Bears’ all-time leading scorer, isn’t he?”
Ditka embodied the blue-collar “Grabowski” image that Chicagoans warmly embraced as he became the second-winningest coach in Bears history. Kickers generally are not known to get their hands dirty, not to mention their sanitized uniform pants. But Ditka thought of Butler differently.
“Kevin was not a typical kicker. He was not a flake,” Ditka said.
Perhaps that is why Ditka refused to coddle Butler, choosing instead to yell at him on the sideline occasionally if he missed a key kick.
“When he missed field goals, I may have said something to him. But if you remember, when I won games as a coach, I had a job. And when I didn’t win games, I was out of a job. So one hand washed the other,” Ditka said.
About the incident in Tampa, Ditka is now properly contrite. “Those were a bit overblown. If I ever said anything to Kevin to hurt his feelings, I certainly apologize to him,” said Ditka. “I don’t want to ever hurt anybody’s feelings.”
Former Bears’ defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan got under Butler’s skin last year before the Bears played the Arizona Cardinals, where Ryan is now the head coach.
During interviews the week before the Bears game, Ryan mentioned a few players who remained from the Super Bowl XX team, including Mark Bortz and Shaun Gayle. But he failed to mention Butler, who went on to kick four field goals, including the game-winning 27-yard kick in overtime for a 19-16 Chicago win.
“Buddy just doesn’t like kickers,” Butler said after the dramatic victory. “I have all the respect in the world for Buddy. But it was just funny this week that kickers are easily forgotten. But that’s OK.
“Hopefully, Buddy will remember now that I was on the ’85 team,”
Butler applauded the hiring of Wannstedt as head coach in 1993 and approves of the more laid-back style of the new field boss. Whereas Ditka’s style was often confrontational, “It is different now,” Butler said. “Dave walks up and we will start talking.”
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Butler holds virtually all of the Bears kicking records-19 in all. In 1989, he connected on 24 straight field goals, which was an NFL record that has since been broken. “I don’t even know what they are,” said Butler, when asked which records give him the most pride.
“I used to compare myself to other kickers in the league, but it is ridiculous to do. They don’t kick eight times where I kick and I don’t kick eight times where they kick. I have seen some kickers who have been touted the greatest to come through here and fall on their face. And I have been other places that were supposed to be easier to kick in, and I have fallen on my face. My competition is myself. My competition is the uprights.
“When I had the streak of 24, I was kicking as well as I had ever kicked, at that point. But for the next two years, we only tried 19 field goals each season. One year, I scored 51 percent of our offensive points and I think we had maybe 23 field goals. My rookie year, we tried 38 field goals and I made 31 to set the rookie scoring mark. I am just a good gauge for what we are doing as a team offensively.”
Butler’s 44-yard field goal in the first period of last December’s 13-3 loss to New England placed him in rather exclusive company. Butler became only the 22nd player in NFL history to score 1,000 points. And Butler became only the fourth player to reach 1,000 points in 10 years or less (joining Jan Stenerud, Gary Anderson and Gino Cappelletti).
As a Bears rookie, Butler was considered one of the zany Bears players. He hung out with quarterback Jim McMahon, “the Punky QB,” who handed Butler the dubious nickname “Butthead.”
“I was rooming with Kenny Margerum and we were living in an attic back in ’85,” said Butler of his final bachelor year. “He taught me how to live out of one bag in an attic and he and Jim were very good friends. Ken and I would just go over to their house for dinner with Nancy and the kids.
“Jim was a tremendous leader, very loyal to his team. Crazier than all hell. The thing about Jim is that he was that way during the week, but when it became game time, he was the last person that he cared about.
“There are a lot of people who feel differently. But I just think he was unselfish on the football field. Being a football player and being on a lot of teams, that is one thing that you look for. Jim would sacrifice just about anything.”
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Butler was responsible for half of the Bears’ offense in 1993, but he haggled over a contract with club negotiator and vice president of operations Ted Phillips.
Butler and Phillips had not seen eye-to-eye since a regrettable incident on Aug. 6, 1991. Butler had been cited for speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol in north suburban Lincolnshire just before signing a new contract with the Bears. Phillips was angered that Butler did not mention the DUI charge when he signed the new contract, and Phillips made disparaging comments about that in the newspapers.
When the next contract talks bogged down two years ago over a signing bonus, Butler took it personally.
“Ted Phillips doesn’t feel I am worth the signing bonuses. But I can see other players who have just received signing bonuses. And there is no way they are more valuable than me,” Butler said then.
“I don’t know what their thinking is, but it is kind of getting frustrating. It seems like a not very respectful way of treating me. But I guess that is what football is about.”
Phillips says now: “I understand what a difficult time it was for Kevin and his family in 1991. His DUI was not a factor in our last contract negotiations. I don’t hold a grudge. I have the highest respect for Kevin.”
Butler has tried to put the DUI incident behind him. But it was a trying time for him and his family.
“You couldn’t have said anything to him that he hadn’t already said to himself,” said Butler’s mother, Sharon. “We just told him we loved him and we were behind him. He is his own worst critic. It was a hard time, and I think he will always regret it. And I don’t think that will ever happen again.”
During the off-season, Butler and Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton formed a new business called The Gridiron Group. One of its ventures will be a golf tournament in Mesa, Ariz., during the Super Bowl hoopla in nearby Tempe.
“It was very good for me to come into the league and see the respect that Walter had for other players and the way that they respected him back. And the way he exemplified being a leader. I feel very lucky to be involved with him now through our business. “
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NFL owners adopted rules changes involving the kicking game in March, 1994, including the option of the two-point conversion from the 2-yard line.
They moved kickoffs back from the 35- to the 30-yard line and now permit the use of a tee no higher than 1 inch. And missed field goals from beyond the 20-yard line now are returned to the spot of the attempt, instead of the line of scrimmage.
Butler feels the kicking game still will be very important despite the owners’ desire to de-emphasize 3-point attempts.
The kicking fraternity in the NFL seems to be closer than that of other position players. But Butler still knows when to keep his distance.
“Fuad Reveiz is one person I will talk to in the off-season,” said Butler. “If I get back home, I will talk to Greg Davis or Chris Gardocki or John Kasay . But come Game Day, I don’t really care about them. I am not going to act like I do. I will talk to them after the game.”
In the 1960s, NFL kickers generally scored on 60-65 percent of their field goal attempts. Nowadays, 70 percent seems to be the accepted minimum.
“I see the success rate going up to 77 percent to 84 percent in future years,” says Butler. “That is realistic because the kickers are getting a lot more accurate. And the average field goal distance attempted will probably drop because of the new rules.”
Last season, Butler scored a club-high 87 points. He scored on 21 of 29 field goals and all 24 extra points. He entered this season with a club-record 16 career field goals of 50 yards or more, including seven the previous two seasons. But he missed a 40-yarder in an overtime loss at Minnesota last December. At the time, a victory would have assured the Bears of winning their division. They did eventually make it into the playoffs as a wild-card entry.
“I had a good year last year, but there is only one kick that most people remember. That is the life of a kicker. I remember that kick, too. I remember it more than anybody who might have been betting out there or who thought their life was depending on that kick. I remember it and I corrected it and it is something that I will have to move on from. I am not going to let it happen again. That is the attitude that I take. You have to learn from the good and the bad.”
Butler stands alone along the sideline during a game. He says, “I get very caught up in the game. If I get around the coaches I start talking to them, I try to call plays. I tell them to run the clock down. I can stay less emotional if I say away.”
He’s optimistic about the future: ” The coaching staff here now honestly respects me and what I do. I am the best man for the job. I don’t see them in the next three or four years getting anybody better than me.
“I see the team doing well this year. It’s just a privilege to be in the NFL. It’s far-reaching in terms of the lives you can touch. It puts a lot of things into perspective as far as how lucky you are. I always ask the question of myself: ‘Why not me? Why can’t it be Kevin Butler? Why can’t I play in Chicago 16 or 17 years? There isn’t a written rule that says I can’t.”
