Tom Butler Passes Away

Madison, Wis.--Former Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (then Wisconsin State University Conference) Sports Information Director Tom Butler, passed away on June 2. Butler served as the conference’s sports information director from 1967 - 96.

Thomas J. Butler, age 84, passed away after a brief illness on Monday, June 2, 2008 at St. Mary's Hospital surrounded by his loving family. Tom was born May 19, 1924, in Madison to Joseph and Mary Tierney Butler. He was raised on Lakeland Avenue not far from where his great-grandfather, Ernest Sommers, settled in 1850, an area that now includes Sommers Avenue. Tom attended St. Bernard's Grade School and graduated from East High School in 1942. After attending the University of Wisconsin for one semester, he served three years in the Navy, two aboard LST 986 that participated in five island invasions in the Pacific in 1944 and 1945. Following his discharge, he returned to the UW and graduated from the School of Journalism in January of 1950. Tom married Bonnie Friedl Butler on June 25, 1949, at Blessed Sacrament Church. Bonnie died in 1994. He worked for the Stevens Point Journal in 1950-51 and the Daily Jefferson County Union in Fort Atkinson in 1952. Tom joined the Wisconsin State Journal sports staff Feb. 1, 1953. He covered a variety of sporting events with his principal "beat" being UW football and basketball. He wrote a regular column for 26 years. Tom also "moonlighted" as Sports Information Director of the Wisconsin State University Conference (WSUC) now the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) for 29 years. Since 1998, the conference has presented an annual award in his name to a media person considered to have provided outstanding coverage to WIAC athletics. He was voted Wisconsin Sports Writer of the Year by his peers in 1964 and 1965. He received citations from the Mendota Gridiron Club, the UW Boxers Association and a Senior Service Award from Madison's Downtown Rotary in 1991. Tom also received the Pat O'Dea Award in 1997 from then UW Athletic Director Pat Richter and he was inducted into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Following his retirement June 30, 1987, he wrote occasional stories for the Wisconsin State Journal and authored two books: "The Badger Game" about UW football and "Field House Echoes" featuring events he witnessed in that historic building as a schoolboy, university student and sportswriter. He was a member of Blessed Sacrament parish since 1953 and a charter member of the old Madison Pen and Mike Club, now known as the Madison Sports Hall of Fame Club. Tom is survived by daughters, Kathleen (Gary) Buss, Jayme (Randy) Wilson and Peggy (Paul) Wirtzfeld of Madison; son, Jeffrey (Jennifer) Butler of Middleton; 13 grandchildren, Tory and Tyler Buss, Terry, Jessi, Kyle, Maggie, T.J. and Dani Wilson, Mitchell, Jon and Andrew Wirtzfeld and Joe and Emily Butler; great-granddaughter, Alexus Wilson; brother, Dave (Frances) Butler of Monona; brother-in-law, Jim (Gail) Friedl; sisters-in-law, Marcia and Joyce (the late Bill) Friedl; many nieces and nephews; and step-grandsons, Sam, Bennett and Malcolm Schneider. He is preceded in death by his wife of 45 years, Bonnie, whom he always considered his most valuable editor; their son, Terry; and his brothers, Richard and Michael. Visitation will be held Thursday, June 5, 2008, from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. at CRESS FUNERAL HOME, 3610 Speedway Road, Madison, with a rosary beginning at 7 p.m. Visitation will also be held Friday, June 6, 2008, from 9:30 a.m. until the time of the Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m. at BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHOLIC CHURCH, 2116 Hollister Ave., Madison. Burial will follow at Resurrection Cemetery. Memorial Contributions may be made in Tom's name to: Dominican Society for Vocation Support, 1909 South Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL 60608.
Cress Funeral and Cremation Service 3610 Speedway Road (608) 238-3434 www.cressfuneralservice.com

Following are three articles that have been written about Tom’s influence on athletics in the State of Wisconsin.

If you knew Butler, either personally or vicariously during his distinguished career as a sportswriter and columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, then you can't think of a nobler pursuit.

He was an amalgam of patience, dignity, sincerity, curiosity, honesty, perception and humor.

He was industrious, quiet and humble almost to a fault.

He wrote with an understated flair that left you believing he'd turned the story inside-out before presenting his views on it.

He was the kind of journalist — heck, person — we should all aspire to be.

I must admit I didn't always see it that way, a shameful reality owed to youth and naivete.

I was a 20-something kid, desperate to make my way in this business, back in the early 1980s when major college athletics started to lose track of its innocence.

This was when the University of Wisconsin football and men's basketball programs were first getting in serious trouble with the NCAA; when there was great discord between UW chancellor Irving Shain and UW athletic director Elroy Hirsch; when UW Athletic Board chairman David Tarr was becoming a household name with his forays into controversy.

It was a time of utter craziness (UW-Eau Claire legend Ken Anderson accepting, then turning down the job of men's basketball coach); subtle dramas (UW women's basketball coach Edwina Qualls disciplining five players who ignored her order to walk off the court during a game to protest a referee's call); and epic sadness (football coach Dave McClain suffering a fatal offseason heart attack).

In other words, there were a ton of great stories to investigate and dissect, and I somehow finagled my way into the middle of most of them.

Those are projects that require reporters to be annoyingly persistent, ask a lot of invasive questions and do so as tactfully as possible.

It was probably that last item that prompted those in the UW Athletic Department, as well as many Badgers fans, to admonish me with a simple refrain.

"You should be more like Tom Butler."

I foolishly took it to mean that only Butler should be writing these stories and would do a much better job than I was.

In truth, while some simply didn't like the negative tone these stories brought to the sports section, many no doubt felt I needed lessons in decorum from Butler.

They were right.

When Butler died Monday of a heart attack at the age of 84 — his funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, 2116 Hollister Ave. in Madison — memories of a colleague who embodied grace and civility came flooding back to me.

His adoration of college football. His knowledge of all things Madison.

His voice that I never heard raised in anger. His humble, if misguided, belief that he wasn't worthy of induction into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame.

To be more like Tom Butler is no insult. It's a prayer.

Tom Butler, 84, a retired Wisconsin State Journal sportswriter who covered Badger football and basketball for more than two decades and who developed a national reputation for integrity and decency as a writer and columnist, died Monday of a heart attack.

One doesn't often use the word "courtly" to describe a sportswriter, but few other words would adequately describe Butler. A tall man who managed to keep a full head of white hair even into his 80s, Butler was always soft-spoken, invariably polite and impressively modest.

Butler retired in 1987 after 37 years as a journalist, 34 of them at the State Journal.

Bill Brophy, the newspaper's former sports editor, recalls Butler as "one of the classiest gentlemen ever to be called a sportswriter. No one disliked him. He was one of the most beloved media writers in the country. I think he was respected by everyone who ever knew him."

When Butler retired 21 years ago, Brophy wrote a column about him, noting that Indiana University's basketball coach at the time, the controversial Bobby Knight, once strode up to Butler at an Indiana-UW game and said, "Tom Butler, it's always good to see you. I've always said there are only two sportswriters who are gentlemen, Tom Butler and Bob Hammel."

Hammel was an Indiana writer known to be a close confidant of Knight. In February, Knight announced his retirement as basketball coach at Texas Tech.

A native of Madison, Butler graduated from Madison East High School and, in 1950, from the UW-Madison School of Journalism. Before beginning his studies, Butler served in the Navy during World War II.

Butler took newspaper jobs in Fort Atkinson and Stevens Point before joining the State Journal in 1953. His first assignment here was covering an indoor track meet. During his career he covered 34 WIAA state basketball tournaments, covered UW football for 25 years and UW men's basketball for 20 years and found time to be assistant sports editor as well.

In 1964 and again in 1965 Butler was named Wisconsin Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. In 2004, he was inducted into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame.

When his friend and colleague Glenn Miller died of a heart attack in 1985, just a few months after retiring, Butler decided he would like to spend as many of his remaining years as he could traveling with his wife, Bonnie — who died several years ago — and enjoying gardening at his Coney Weston Place home.

Butler reflected on that decision last summer, noting, "If I had any idea I was going to live into my 80s, I think I'd have stayed with sportswriting for at least a little longer."

There was a dignity to his approach, and a credibility to his influence and longevity.

There was an unassuming quality to his life, and an understated stature to his work.

And there was trust. You trusted Tom Butler. You might disagree with what he was saying, or how he was saying it.

But there was a trust factor to all of his columns in the Wisconsin State Journal.

You trusted the man, and the sportswriter; one in the same. Such was my deep respect for Tom Butler, who passed away Monday. He was 84.

Prior to his 2004 induction in the Madison Sports Hall of Fame, I asked about his legacy. He seemed almost embarrassed to address the topic.

"Oh, gosh, I don't know what it might be," pleaded Butler, who was reluctant to talk about himself and had argued against his induction.

Pausing to collect his thoughts, he finally relented and said of his legacy, "I hope I gave somebody a little amusement occasionally, and they had fun reading that stuff.

"I didn't expect to be Red Smith," he added, referencing the Green Bay native who went on to win the Pulitzer with the New York Times.

"I just wanted to write a good column once in a while," suggested Butler in his signature self-effacing manner, "and have everybody look forward to reading it."

That was the case for a generation of readers who woke up every morning to Butler in the Sports Peach section of the Wisconsin State Journal.

He was an old school journalism throwback to a faraway day when people read and newspapers mattered -- when personal accountability carried far more weight than internet access, and excess.

"When the air gets a little crisper and leaves turn to flame, excitement mounts around the old Civil War training ground called Camp Randall," Butler wrote in his book "The Badger Game.''

He was a historian who took great pride in the many traditions that have defined University of Wisconsin athletics, especially football.

"Society likes to identify with something -- a church affiliation, a lodge, a club, an athletic team," Butler wrote.

"Badger football, which started more than a century ago, remains a favorite tradition to thousands ..."

He, too, was a favorite; a must-read tradition for thousands upon thousands of State Journal subscribers who identified with Tom Butler.

And his legacy will continue to be celebrated today by those people who put their trust in his touch, and had so much fun reading that stuff.

By Dennis Semrau (The Capital Times) (6/2/08)

We have lost another great one.

I was saddened to hear today of the loss of former Wisconsin State Journal sportswriter Tom Butler, who covered Badger football and basketball for 25 years and also served as the sports information director for the old Wisconsin State University Conference, now called the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, for nearly three decades.

A personable man of great integrity, Butler died Monday of a heart attack at the age of 84. He was certainly a role model for a generation of sportswriters and will be missed.

Tom retired in 1987 after 37 years as a journalist, 34 of them at the State Journal. But he continued to work with the WSUC for another decade.

Along with retired sportswriter Don Lindstrom, who was a legendary reporter covering high school sports for the State Journal, Tom Butler was responsible for my becoming a sportswriter and in particular covering high school sports. Tom covered the WIAA state boys' basketball tournament for 34 years and the stories he regaled of the games and personalities were a treat.

I got to know him when I began working for the State Journal in 1984 as a student. Tom interviewed me for a position as a "six-pointer", working on the copy desk and taking prep phone calls and doing rewrites. My respect for him grew even greater after I began working for the University of Wisconsin Sports Information Office later that year.

But I really got to know Tom after I was hired in 1992 to work with the WIAAC, handling publicity for the NCAA Division III conference's women's sports. I had the pleasure of spending time with Tom every Monday for more than five years as we produced a weekly press release for our respective leagues.

I couldn't have found a better mentor or friend. He was a wonderful storyteller and quick with a quip. As a budding sportswriter, I could ask him questions about anything and everything and his patience was tremendous.

He was from a generation of journalists who preferred to tell the story and not be part of it. He also made you feel like what you did was important, no matter if you were a highly decorated peer or someone just breaking into the business.

Tom was a Madison native who graduated from East High School and from the UW-Madison. He also served in the Navy during World War II. But he was most proud of being a Badger fan.

His knowledge of UW sports was legendary. It was always a treat to read his columns, especially due to his historical insight. An autographed copy of his book, Field House Echoes, published in 2003, has a prominent place in my sports library.

At this time, funeral arrangements are pending at the Cress Funeral Home, 3610 Speedway Road. But I'm sure Tom's memory will be honored on Wednesday at the annual Madison Sports Hall of Fame banquet at the Monona Terrace. Tom was inducted into the Hall four years ago, only the second sportswriter to be accorded such an honor.

The WIAC also honored him when it established The Tom Butler Award, which has been presented annually by the conference since 1998 and is voted on by the conference's sports information directors. The award is given to a representative of the print or electronic media who is considered to have provided outstanding coverage to WIAC athletics.

Few did it better and none more honorably.